


Nostalgia’s a Bitch

by mythras_fire



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Character Study, Episode Tag, M/M, Malex Feels, Memories, POV Michael Guerin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2019-10-14 10:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17507231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythras_fire/pseuds/mythras_fire
Summary: Michael wouldn’t have risked the very lives of Isobel, Max, and himself if it had been him and Alex alone in the Crashdown when—





	1. S1E1: Worst-case Scenario

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All quotes in italics belong to the show’s creators, as do the characters.

Michael hit the open desert and put the pedal to the metal, the tires on his old beat-up Chevy squealing and sending a spray of gravel and dirt shooting out in all directions, leaving a cloud of dissipating dust in his wake. 

He felt the tension in his chest start to loosen. The warm, dry desert air blew through the open windows, sending his curls flying out every which way. He always could breathe better out in the open, away from the stifling pressure cooker of town with all its rules. Fucking human rules. 

He gripped the steering wheel tighter as he pulled it sharply to the left, spinning the truck around in a giant arc, watching the tracks appear in his rear-view mirror.

_Why you gotta cause a scene, Michael?_

_Why don’t you drive the speed limit, Michael?_

_Why don’t you spend your nights like I do, crying and masturbating to Russian moralistic literature, Michael?_

He smiled sardonically as he took the truck for another spin in the other direction, driving through his own dust trail. He was pretty proud of that last one if he did say so himself. 

Big brother had to keep everyone in Roswell safe. Even from Michael it seemed. Well, fuck that. 

Michael wasn’t the one who went and threw twenty years of hiding in plain sight out the window in one moment of panic over a girl he’d had a crush on in high school ten fucking years ago and hadn’t seen since.

He glared out the windshield as he pulled out of the spin to send the truck racing away from one circle like he was competing in the forty-yard dash only to then cut a U-ie back towards the cloud of dust trying to float away on the late-night breeze above the other circle. 

Michael wouldn’t have risked the very lives of Isobel, Max, and himself if it had been him and Alex alone in the Crashdown when—

Shit!

The truck skidded to a stop, barely staying on all four tires as Michael overcorrected the steering wheel; his body and mind became disjointed, one no longer aware of what the other one was in the middle of doing. 

“Fuck,” he exhaled in a shaky whisper, his left arm resting on the window sill as he ran a hand through his wild and untamed curls, the other one clasped over his heart, which was suddenly trying to beat straight through his ribcage. 

What if it _had_ been Alex and him alone in the Crashdown during that driveby? What would he have done if he saw blood running out of a gunshot wound in Alex’s body? 

Alex.

The tension in Michael’s chest came slamming back and it felt like his heart was now stuck in a vice — and the crank was turning, slowly but surely.

_Finally a real Manes man._

_Three-quarters of one._

Three-quarters of a man. Michael could deal with that. Part of him (the sappy assimilated-human part) had wanted to pull Alex into his Airstream right then and there and do a _very_ thorough body search to find out what else military life had done to his Alex. The other part of him (the wary reclusive alien part) told the human part to shut the fuck up because he wasn’t his Alex anymore, probably never was. He’s the one who left Michael all alone in Roswell after graduation after all. To join the fucking Air Force.

But three-quarters was still better than nothing. And that’s what Michael would have had if the bastard who blew off Alex’s leg had been a better shot. 

Nothing.

He wouldn’t have come home from Iraq at all. 

He wouldn’t have been there snooping around Michael’s caravan, looking incongruously hot in his fatigues.

He wouldn’t have been at the reunion, trying to dig up dirt on Michael’s presumedly illegal activities. Ouch. (Thanks for that, by the way. His vote of confidence concerning how he guessed Michael had been spending the last ten years was overwhelming.)

And he wouldn’t have been in that darkened room, looking at Michael with those big brown eyes that were saying something wholly unconnected to what his mouth was saying.

That mouth.

Michael just couldn’t help himself. Kissing Alex again after all that time was like coming home. And Michael didn’t even know where home was. Memories can fade over time but the senses will always remember. The smell of his shampoo, the feel of his skin just starting to grow stubble, the taste of his lips. Michael could drown in those lips and had done. In another time. 

Another time where he had asked a similar question of a similarly doe-eyed seventeen-year-old Alex Manes as he backed him into the darkened corner of the gymnasium at their senior prom and received a similar answer— that he had then made irrelevant by running both hands into Alex’s hair and kissing him for the first time. And the second time. And for one precious month, an infinity of times more. 

Michael had made the first move then. He had done so again tonight. And he realized with a sudden epiphany-like jolt to his vice-gripped heart, he would do so as many times as it took to make Alex his. In as many ways as he could fathom.

One of those ways was using his alien powers to save Alex’s life, no matter the consequences. 

In two shakes of a lamb’s tail, the glare of the headlights from his truck came back into view through the dusty windshield, their twin beams of light stretching out into the desert darkness. 

Michael exhaled deeply, rubbing at his chest, the tightness not so much receding as just sort of spreading out. He inhaled deeply through his nose a few times anyway, trying to center himself. He still didn’t like what Max had done, particularly the fact that it had been Liz Ortecho of all people, but at least now he understood why he’d done it.

But that didn’t mean he had to let Max off easy— oh, no. 

Michael smiled impishly as he put the rusty old Chevy into gear and turned the headlights away from the artwork he had completed just before he’d had his mini, uh, existential crisis.

He was sure that the Sheriff’s department would appreciate receiving the phone call from one of the local Air Force hangars tomorrow about the crop circle that had mysteriously shown up overnight in the desert outside of Roswell in the shape of a giant phallus. 

Michael had his cover as the town drunk to maintain, after all.


	2. S1E2: Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has left me kind words of encouragement and come to hang out and chat about this awesome new ‘ship! You guys make me feel excited to be here (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)
> 
> Disclaimer: pop-culture references belong to their respective creators.

Well, this was unexpected. 

Michael woke up to the soft whirring sound of clothing being swept about the Airstream as if it were in a giant clothes dryer and he had a front row seat inside the machine, gazing up from his bed at the barely audible maelstrom; weak moonlight leaking in through the cracks in the maps taped to the windows softly illuminated the magic show above his head. His face was buffeted by the gentle breeze wafting down from the spinning clothes; some of his longer curls were being blown into his eyes so he made to reach up a hand to brush them out of the way, trying to remember the last time his powers had gone on the fritz this demonstrably.

The answer to his question shifted in his sleep just then, and the arms and legs of a warm, naked body tightened their grip on him to still his movements. 

Alex. 

Michael’s eyes widened as an electrochemical trifecta of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine flashed through his brain like lightning. The events of the afternoon and evening tap-dancing their way across his mind’s eye quick as a Fred and Ginger number caused him to gasp loudly, which of course made the octopus currently draped across him grumble at his continued insolence. 

Michael glanced down to see Alex’s hair being blown around lightly as well. He looked back up at the clothes flying around only a foot or two above them and back down at Alex, frozen with indecision. This kind of thing hadn’t happened to him in so long he’d forgotten that his powers manifested as if they had a will of their own when his emotions were out of control. He’d tried to maintain an even keel with his emotions tucked away in his back pocket ever since a certain someone, who was probably drooling all over his chest right now, had left Roswell to enlist in the fucking Air Force. He figured that was better than having to explain to Isobel why random objects and structures around town that weren’t bolted down might start mysteriously showing up in strange and impossible places. 

It would have been one thing if it were just the negative emotions brewing inside of him that made his powers seek the path of least resistance out into the ether through his skin in the form of shock waves and levitation pulses. He’d had to learn how to channel his anger at a young age, whether it be from his circumstances at the foster-home-of-the-month or another fight with Max (sometimes he picked fights with Max just to have a target on whom he could actually direct his powers. It was strangely cathartic at times, and he thought Max might feel the same way, but he had no interest in having a touchy-feely conversation with him about it to find out). 

But as Michael discovered one fateful day senior year of high school on a field trip to a museum, it was another thing entirely to find out that positive emotions could also trigger these outbursts of untamed power. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever properly thanked Isobel for running interference for him to keep all the normally oblivious humans from noticing that a couple of the skeletons in the display case along one wall (behind which he’d dragged a shy, blushing boy with big chocolate brown eyes for their first clandestine kiss) had risen up off their hooks and begun to softly sway together to an inaudible two-step. 

Michael’d had no idea his powers had manifested until he snuck back around the wall into the museum gallery with an adorably dazed-looking Alex Manes tucked up behind him, the two of them trying to surreptitiously rejoin their class. Alex had noticed that there were two skeletons who were placed like they were frozen in the middle of a grand dance, and had tugged on Michael’s sleeve and silently pointed. Michael hadn’t really thought anything of it until he happened to catch Isobel’s reflection glaring at him through the panes of tinted museum glass. Fuck, that wasn’t a good sign- that was her “congrats, you just added yourself to my shitlist” glare. He refocused his gaze on the skeletons, their positions taking on a new and worrisome significance, then glanced back at her, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her gaze was focused on Alex. It was not a pleasant, “I’m dying to meet your new friend” kind of gaze. It wasn’t malicious either. 

Just... wary. 

That pattern of emotional cause-and-effect created a Catch-22 in which Michael found himself trapped for the rest of the year. Being around Alex made him feel free as a bird, and when he looked into those fathomless brown depths he would forget that he was an alien stranded on earth, looking for a way home. He was just Michael Guerin, a boy who loved Alex Manes. Every time they got to be alone together, even if ‘alone’ was a relative term, his emotions would soar and things would start... happening.

Luckily for Michael (he wasn’t sure he thought of it as luck though), Alex tended not to be completely in charge of his senses whenever Michael’s powers went haywire. 

One time he was three sheets to the wind and cuddled up real cozylike to his secret boyfriend’s side when Michael accidentally caused all the empty beer cans strewn about the bed of his truck where the two of them had been stargazing out at Fosters Homestead Ranch to line themselves up along the rim of the truck bed before swan-diving off the edge like synchronized swimmers. Alex had applauded clumsily and given the beer cans a 9.5 for execution, and then promptly passed out. 

The first time they made love, on a dingy old futon in the bed of his truck where the two of them had been stargazing out at Fosters Homestead Ranch, Michael accidentally caused the entire futon to levitate about six inches above the truck bed and neither one of them noticed this until Alex reached backwards over his head to grab the rear gate to brace himself against the raw power of Michael’s thrusts and grasped only air. “Holy shit!” was followed immediately by “Ow, I think you broke my ass, you fucker,” (a normally shy and reserved Alex cursed like a sailor when he was aroused - Michael loved it) because Michael had panicked and his powers had unceremoniously dropped them back onto the unforgiving steel truck bed with a muted THUD, jostling the truck and making the shocks whine at the sudden impact. Alex had later whispered into Michael’s ear, as they both lay there panting in a post-orgasmic haze, that Michael had made his first time feel so magical he had been sure they’d actually started to float away. Michael was thiiis close to bursting into tears for several reasons (not all of them happy) so he just buried his head in the crook of Alex’s neck that had quickly become his home and exhaled loudly.

The night that Alex told him he was leaving to join the fucking Air Force, in the bed of his truck where the two of them had been stargazing out at Fosters Homestead Ranch, Michael did burst into tears, the silent, throat-burning, nose-running kind, and accidentally caused it to rain. In the middle of the New Mexican desert. During a drought. The two of them just sat there staring at each other, stunned by Alex’s disclosure and Michael’s reaction, seemingly ignorant of the water soaking them to the bone. Alex was ostensibly sober that night, but the look on his face said that he was far from paying close attention to improbable weather phenomena. 

When Michael had dragged his sorry ass back into town a few days after the “unexplained weather event,” Isobel, who had shown up at The Crashdown to wait for her then-boyfriend Noah to pick her up for their date, took one look at Michael’s bloodshot eyes, inconsolable mien, and overall sagging figure, and made what could only be described as a remorseful facial expression that confused Michael to this very day. Not pity, but guilt - which was very strange, especially for Isobel. To add to his later confusion once the fog in his head had cleared, he recalled that the look on her face had vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared (making him wonder if it had ever been there in the first place). Right before Noah walked over to collect her, she’d leaned over, touched Michael gently on the shoulder, and told him how many people she’d overheard thanking the rain gods for the unexpected downpour the other day which had replenished the local dried-up reservoirs and soaked down into the water table, saving the town from having to ration water. He managed to smile feebly. 

The last time they saw each other, the realization of which sat in Michael’s stomach like a lead balloon, for he was sure this was it, forever, Alex had leaned in one last time, resting their foreheads together to whisper hoarsely, “Have a safe ride home, Starman,” and walked out of Michael’s life.

Michael fell prey to a whole-body shiver at the mere mention of that day in his memories and in that moment the clothes dryer abruptly finished its spin cycle, ejecting the clothes in all directions.

Some of the clothing hit the bed and he heard Alex mutter from underneath Michael’s boxer briefs, “Save the magic show for when I’m awake, k, Starman? Go back to sleep. And get your filthy underwear off me.”

“S-s-sorry,” Michael very carefully lifted the boxers up off of Alex’s head with his eyes and flung them behind him, cringing when they collided with and slid down the one window that had plastic blinds. Of fucking course. 

There were more grumbling sounds from the vicinity of his ribcage, but they soon faded with some strategic caressing of Alex’s lower back where he discovered his hands were being held captive. 

Michael couldn’t keep the sappy grin off his face. Oh, he was wide awake now; how Alex could go on blithely sleeping, even snoring a little, Michael couldn’t fathom. He was here! In the caravan. With him. Naked in his bed again for fuck’s sake!! How could he have fallen asleep in the first place with all this joy running amok in his veins??

It took him a few seconds to notice the clothes strewn around the bed start to float slowly upward once again and he had to tamp down quickly on the power thrumming inside him, just itching for a way to get out. 

He needed to calm down or the shit was very likely to hit the fan if Alex woke up all the way to find his whole outfit from earlier doing its best impression of a tornado in a teacup. 

Michael took a slow but deep breath in and held it for a few seconds before releasing it even more slowly through his nose. Every time he took another breath, the clothes drifted back down towards the floor like the bewitched brooms and water buckets in _The Sorcerer’s Apprentice_ , twitching a sleeve or pant leg here and there. 

When he felt confident enough to let his mind wander, he released a sigh and snuggled down more comfortably into Alex’s warm embrace. The love of his life made a little purring sound of approval and shifted his head up to the crook of Michael’s neck where it met his shoulder, kissing the skin once, twice, in his sleep. Michael kissed the top of Alex’s head in return.

Unexpected, yes, but oh so welcome.


	3. S1E3: Together Our Two Hearts Are Strong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters seem to be entangling themselves so you might want to read them in order...
> 
> Non-spoilery Disclaimers: Characters, places, lyrics, and pop culture references belong to their respective creators. See End Notes for chapter-spoilery disclaimers.

Michael sat lounging on his bed in the Airstream with his acoustic guitar resting in his lap, aimlessly picking out tunes that ran through his head. Tonight had been going so well, until it... wasn’t. He hadn’t planned on staying at the drive-in to watch one in a long line of xenophobic aliens-are-evil movies after he fixed the projector for Isobel. Hell no. That trope was way overused anyway. 

Why couldn’t there be more movies like E.T.? Or, shit - and this was a total shot in the dark here - but maybe they could make an movie about a group of aliens who were marooned on Earth in a fiery crash and were just trying to make their way home, having to assimilate into human society incognito, suppressing their alien powers, and generally just feeling very very alone in a very very large universe? 

“Yeah, and we’ll get Steven Spielberg to produce it,” He scoffed at his own ridiculousness, strumming out a quick riff with his pick. 

No, he’d planned on being anywhere else but there until Alex had shown up with a sixer and an olive branch. In his civvies to boot. At a fundraiser for the VA. Oh, that had been a bold move, what with the Master Sergeant hovering in the periphery of the drive-in, lurking, always lurking, like he had nothing better to do with his time than to follow his grown-ass children around like a fucking mother hen, clucking and pecking at them until they fell back in line. Then Alex had made another bold move by inviting himself into Michael’s truck (a place Michael thought of more as “their space” than anywhere else in town) - in a public setting where other people would see them sitting together - even with all that space in between them. That was part of what tore Michael up inside as he practiced running through the major and minor chords from memory, multitasking for want of something to do with all this restless energy that Alex always seemed to charge up in him. 

He knew Alex wanted to be with him. He could feel it in his bones. The choices Alex had been making lately proclaimed that loud and clear. The sounds he’d made the night before in this very bed had been downright adamant. Exultant. Michael groaned at the sense memory of Alex’s hands running all over his body, their fingers intertwined as they rediscovered each other, breathed each other’s air, dreamed each other’s dreams. 

He sighed heavily as the scene at the drive-in elbowed its way into his mind’s eye, where he caught the tale end of one of the seemingly endless encounters with Alex’s G.I. Joe father. He could see better in the dark than humans but his hearing wasn’t too much better so he only caught a few of the more emphasized words exchanged between the two men. At least he could tell from his body language that Alex was trying to stand up for himself more these days. That was a pleasant surprise. Michael would be more than happy to help out with that, if only he knew how. 

Unfortunately, though, Michael had known what was coming after that little chat. Sometimes it took longer than other times, but inevitably Alex would come around with his sad little Bambi eyes and tell Michael some bullshit that neither one of them believed about why they shouldn’t be seen together, and Michael would think of the one good reason why they _should_ be seen together; he'd swallow his words because deep down he knew that Alex was just scared and trying to please his father, which Michael knew was pretty much never going to happen; and they’d spend time apart until his father’s latest round of influence got washed out of Alex’s hair like so much grease from a long day of working under cars in the auto body shop. 

Before everything had gone to shit, however, Michael had been enjoying the nostalgic trip down memory lane, sitting there on the tailgate of his truck with Alex, and had contemplated asking him if he remembered the last time they did this, just the two of them. But before he could, Alex had gotten up to use the restroom, passed by M.Sgt. Grumpypants on his way back, and Michael’s window of opportunity had been slammed shut in his face. Nothing new there. 

He slid down a little further into the pillows, rubbing his cheek in the one where Alex had been resting his head only that morning, inhaling the sweet smell of him that lingered still. He repositioned his guitar and began singing the country tune he’d come to think of as their song. He used to sing himself to sleep with this song, long after Alex had left Roswell. When the tears made his throat close up and his nose run too much for him to carry the tune, he’d just play the melody instead.

> I don't want to say goodbye  
>  Let the stars shine through  
>  I don't want to say goodbye  
>  All I want to do is live with you

His voice cracked halfway through the first stanza and his fingers were a little rusty on the chords, but it felt good to sing their song again. It’d been years since he last played it. He’d run out of tears some time ago and just carried around this pulsing ache where his heart used to be that no amount of nail polish remover was going to heal.

He let his mind wander back to the sequence of events which led to him learning this song by heart. He wasn’t the only one who had secrets. Alex had his own fair share, even if they weren’t of the extra-terrestrial variety. His secrets were more like the kind of thing you whisper into your lover’s ear in the wee hours of the night as he lies curled up to your side. Or, as the case may be, as Alex lay sprawled like a starfish taking up most of the available space in the bed of Michael’s truck because he was three sheets to the wind and thought that Michael was a particularly appealing barnacle. 

Michael snorted at the memory. What a dork. That was the night they had played their first paying gig at UFOnics, the local teenage discotech. It had been such a rush, and they had been so proud of themselves (even if their audience had been stereotypically apathetic towards their shining achievement) that they’d splurged on beer and driven out to Fosters Homestead Ranch to celebrate and look at the stars, their favorite nighttime excursion. Michael had been quietly watching the constellations rise over the back of Alex’s head as he did his best starfish impression across from him in the truck bed when he suddenly became aware that Alex had been quietly watching him instead. He had a look in his eyes that Michael was starting to recognize as his bedroom eyes. Michael quirked an eyebrow. 

“You know, you kinda look like Jack Twist in that hat.”

Michael looked up at the brim of his black cowboy hat, which he wore for comfort the way other people wore beanies or ball caps. He tipped his hat towards Alex with a thumb and forefinger, in that quintessentially cowboy sign of gratitude he’d seen in all the old classic Westerns, even if he had no idea to whom Alex was referring. “Thanks, I guess?”

Alex’s jaw had dropped open and he spluttered incoherently a few times while blushing for some strange but adorable reason. Michael was intrigued now. He, who was only two sheets to the wind, deftly maneuvered one of his stocking feet up the inside lane of Alex’s legs ever so slowly as he inquired who this Jack Twist guy was, mostly so he could see Alex blush some more.

That was how Michael had learned about the movie _Brokeback Mountain_. Alex had a secret crush on Heath Ledger and had wanted to go see the movie when it came to the theater in Santa Fe a couple years back, but with that baby face of his and a growth spurt that was still a year away from happening, he’d had no hope of passing for 18 to get in to see the R-rated movie. Michael spent his days out on the ranch with cattle and sheep when he wasn’t at school and his free time with Alex or Isobel and Max, so his knowledge of rising Hollywood stars or popular human culture in general was not high on his priority list.

> Just like the light of the morning  
>  After the darkness has gone  
>  The shadow of my love is falling  
>  On a place where the sun always shone  
>  Don't you know that's where  
>  Our hearts both belong?

Michael did, however, make it a priority to listen to and remember anything he could learn about his favorite human’s likes and dislikes, his dreams for the future, and even who his secret moviestar crushes were.

Which led to his epic plan to surprise Alex for his seventeenth birthday with his favorite food for dinner and a cleverly constructed outdoor movie theater made out of a white sheet stretched over a post-and-lintel framework hammered into the ground out on the far side of Fosters Homestead Ranch. Michael had made a big show of distracting Alex with all the trappings of the evening’s entertainment so that he wouldn’t notice the minor, trivial, totally inconsequential little fact that the usually noisy movie projector Michael had “borrowed” from the high school A/V club was suddenly a lot more quiet and wasn't actually hooked up to any cables this far out into the desert, away from even the nearest power pole for the Ranch. 

It must have worked because as soon as Alex saw the arrangements and heard what was on the playbill for the evening, he tackle-hugged Michael onto the dingy old futon that had been placed twelve or so feet away from the movie screen, proclaiming him to be the best secret boyfriend EVER. 

They ate dinner on the futon by the firelight of a kerosene lantern Michael had borrowed from the Ranch, and at one point during their boisterous conversation a question, apropos of nothing, occurred to him so he asked Alex why he hadn’t watched _Brokeback Mountain_ after it was released on DVD. Alex sheepishly replied that he hadn’t wanted to watch it by himself. Michael didn’t quite understand the reasoning for this until they started watching the movie, all snuggled up next to each other, leaning against a couple of lounge chair cushions Michael had propped up against the wheels of the truck parked behind the futon. 

And then Michael got it. Oh man did he get it. Here he’d thought that it was just a movie about cowboys that starred Alex’s favorite actor. That’s what it looked like on the cover when he opened the bootleg film canister he’d acquired. Boy was he wrong. It was so much more than that. 

It was a love story. And it was beautiful. And painful.

Alex had been waiting to watch this movie with someone. His own cowboy.

They were both crying by the time Ennis discovered his old shirt safely tucked inside Jack’s old shirt, from that first summer on the mountain. The projector sputtered a few times in the following scene as a result and Michael had to wipe his eyes with his sleeve and concentrate harder. Alex scooted closer and wrapped his arms around Michael's chest, letting his tears soak in to the soft cotton of his plain white tee shirt.

Michael had just thrown the futon into the back of the truck after they’d finished watching the movie and was going to go back to get the projector when Alex walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist, resting his head on Michael’s shoulder, the way Jack had done with Ennis in that firelight scene. Michael froze as he felt as much as heard Alex exhaling loudly into the curls at the back of his neck. Something snapped in Michael at that moment. 

He turned around in Alex’s embrace, their eyes met, and Michael knew. 

“I don’t want us to end up like them.”

Alex’s eyes filled with emotion and his lower lip started to tremble a little. 

“I don’t either.”

Michael could tell that Alex knew, too. 

That was the night they’d made love for the first time, in the bed of Michael’s truck halfway through cleaning up their impromptu theater on Alex’s seventeenth birthday.

> 'Cause I don't want to say goodbye  
>  Let the stars shine through  
>  No, I don't want to say goodbye  
>  All I want to do is live with you  
>  Together our two hearts are strong  
>  Don't you know know that's where  
>  Our hearts both belong?

Michael still had the CD soundtrack to the movie, but he never could quite bring himself to purchase a regular DVD copy of the movie. He did, however, read the novella upon which the movie was based and it was clearly the reason the movie was so starkly beautiful and haunting.

Another reason the movie turned out to be a little more haunting for Michael than he was all that comfortable with, was the very sad news he heard a little while later that Alex’s favorite actor had passed away suddenly. He’d heard it over the phone from Alex himself, or rather, he’d picked out a word here and there in between the sobbing, sniffling, and nose-blowing. He told Alex to meet him at the gates to the Ranch.

Michael hadn’t made it two steps outside the gate when he suddenly had his arms full of a shaking, still slightly incoherent, puffy-eyed Alex Manes. 

He readjusted his grip on Alex’s shoulders so they could both walk without tripping over each other and led him back to his truck where they could sit in their favorite spot, rubbing his back the whole way and making calming noises. 

“There now,” Michael said softly once they were seated and Alex had blown his nose again. Michael knew for sure at this point that he was a total goner if he thought Alex’s waterworks over the passing of someone he had never even met was endearing instead of annoying. 

“I’b sorry, I shouldn’b bothered you wid dis,” Alex mumbled through his stuffy nose, looking morosely down at his hands, one still holding a now-crumpled Kleenex. 

Michael chucked Alex’s chin with his knuckle to get him to look up. “Hey, what kind of best secret boyfriend EVER would I be if I weren’t here to let you get snot all over my shirt while you mourn, eh?” He asked with a soft smile, putting an emphasis on the word ‘ever’ the same way Alex had the night of his birthday, hoping to elicit even half a smile.

And that was how Michael Guerin found out that there was no perfect way to cheer someone up. It was a nebulous sort of thing, one that could change drastically from one occasion to the next. Or sometimes all at once. Alex had looked down at Michael’s shirt as soon as he’d said the word snot and his face had gone through so many contrasting emotions in such quick succession that Michael was worried he was going to pull a facial muscle: surprise, laughter, adoration, love, sadness, and misery. Then he’d burst right back into tears and Michael was at a loss for what to do. 

So he decided to wait it out. There had to be something bigger going on here to be upsetting Alex to this degree. Five minutes later Michael was cursing his genius brain for being so astute. That was the night Alex told him he was being shipped off to the fucking Air Force after graduation. 

That was the night when Michael felt like maybe they were going to turn out like Jack and Ennis after all.

> 'Cause I don't want to say goodbye  
>  Let the stars shine through  
>  I don't want to say goodbye  
>  All I want to do is live with you  
>  All I want to do is live with you

"Well, fuck that, I'll be damned if I let that happen," Michael’s throat was raw. He stood up to get a drink of water and put his guitar back in its case. Tucked into the interior lining was the photo of the two of them, taken the afternoon before that first paying gig at the discotech. He caressed Alex’s figure lightly with one finger before gently closing the lid.

As he was returning from the sink, glass of water tipped up against his lips, he felt a sudden surge of electromagnetic energy come barreling through his caravan, like a tsunami wave of electric current that left his feet tingling. 

And then everything went dark. 

“Fucking A, Max, now what have you done?” Michael grumbled, finished his drink, and grabbed his keys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery Disclaimers: _UFOnics_ belongs to the creators of the Roswell High book series. Chapter title is borrowed from the song, _I Don't Want to Say Goodbye_ , which belongs to Teddy Thompson, as heard on the _Brokeback Mountain_ original motion picture soundtrack.


	4. S1E4: Unconditional Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to write a happy memory for Michael this week. Poor guy could use one. 
> 
> Non-spoilery Disclaimers: Characters, places, lyrics, and pop culture references belong to their respective creators. See End Notes for chapter-spoilery disclaimers.

Michael pushed himself to his feet with a heavy sigh and addressed the only family he'd ever really had, "I'm gonna go for a..." the rest of his sentence being communicated with mild hand gestures and a slow shuffle off into the scrub brush. 

Isobel called for him to come back but he just turned and smiled sadly at her as he walked backwards, making placating gestures. "I'll be back in a little bit, Iz. Just wanna get some air."

Max watched him stoically from his seat, no doubt feeling like this was all somehow his fault. Michael huffed out a breath of air as he kicked at pebbles and stones in his path, heading nowhere in particular. Just away. 

That was one thing about Max, Michael had to give him credit. For all their differences in opinion and attitude over the years, there was one thing Michael knew he would always be able to count on: Max's loyalty. Yeah, so he and Max weren't exactly the best at sharing their feelings around or for each other, but they both knew that the other would stop at nothing to save each other's hides. 

That was a comforting thought. 

What was not such a comforting thought was how Michael was going to save Max and Isobel from exposure. Maybe if he turned himself in, Liz would keep the alien part of the accident out of the trial so that the rest of the town, much less the fucking military, wouldn't find out about Max and Isobel. Kyle was a bit of a sticky wicket but he was also a medical professional who had taken the Hippocratic Oath to First, Do No Harm. No need to ruin any more lives than necessary, right? And Liz was a biomedical engineer who, from what Isobel had gathered, was in love with Max. So, Michael figured he could count on their discretion. 

It's not like the town was going to be scandalized when they heard who was ultimately responsible for the car crash anyway. Michael scowled into the night and kicked a couple of baseball-sized boulders out of his way, something that would have likely broken a human's foot, but just gave Michael something to use as a ball for a pretend game of kickball. He kicked some dirt and dust up into the nighttime desert air and gave it a little push with his telekinesis: a ghostly goalpost shimmered into view about twenty yards away. He took aim at a new rock, got a short running start, and let 'er rip. The rock went sailing straight through the middle of the goalpost arms, which then dissipated as if to say Goooooooooal!

Michael never thought he'd see the day when he was actually thankful that Max was a Sheriff's Deputy, but it likely was part of the reason that Michael only ever ended up in the drunk tank, and not in a dank dark cell somewhere after he'd been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at the Wild Pony one too many times over the years. The town would probably rejoice that the criminal in their midst had finally been brought to justice; that they'd always known it was him; that he just had that 'look' about him; that it was such a tragedy that those nice young girls had been mixed up with a criminal like him. 

_"I'm an Airman. I can't be with a criminal."_

Michael stumbled over a root sticking up out of the cracked ground as those damning words were raked over his mind's eye like hot coals, leaving a trail of burn marks in their wake. He let out a guttural moan of frustration and kicked at some more scrub brush and dirt. As if in response to his inner turmoil, his powers broke loose and projected a mental image up and out into the night; the surface layer of the desert floor rose up into the air to become his paint against the backdrop of stars overhead. A shimmery dust-laden image of Alex's face from that night at the drive-in formed in the sky about ten yards over his head in the distance, light from the waxing gibbous moon just strong enough to reflect off the miniscule dust particles. 

Michael looked up at the effigy with tears in his eyes. "Well, Alex, you wanted a reason. I have one for you. But I've got to say, it's a doozy." He tipped his head back, hands on hips, impatiently willing the tears to recede into his eyes but they just slid into his unruly mass of curls instead. He laughed humorlessly as a thought occurred to him. The dust image of Alex shifted accordingly to reflect the object of his teenage heart's affection. 

"Remember how you used to think I had all the answers? I mean, you _literally_ thought I knew all the answers," Michael's eyes crinkled with nostalgic mirth even as tears continued to trickle down his sun-kissed cheeks. "I could do no wrong when you, me, and Nana watched _Jeopardy!_ together. God, that was fun... I wish I had all the answers now, I really do." His voice cracked on the last few words as he balled his hands into fists to rub at his eyes, willing the memories to come forward and console him, out here alone in the desert in the middle of the night. 

~*~

Michael became a bit of a fixture around the Manes' household on Friday nights starting the week after their class trip to the UFO Museum senior year of high school. Promptly at 7:30 pm he would ring the doorbell and a shy, blushing, beatific Alex Manes would open the front door, half-hiding behind it, and say, "Hello, Michael."

Michael would smile at Alex with his eyes, tip his head forward in greeting, and remove the genuine black Cattleman cowboy hat that he'd saved for three whole years to buy, fair and square, from the storied O'Farrell Hat Company in Santa Fe. "Alex."

Alex's grandma would be comfortably ensconced in her favorite wingback chair next to the loveseat in the small but cozy living room off of the kitchen/dining room, watching Alex Trebek introduce the contestants on _Jeopardy!_ , her knitting project always half-way completed as her skilled hands worked the two needles back and forth, back and forth.

"Good Evening, Nana," Michael would greet her warmly as he walked in to take his seat on the small couch, always on the far side so that Alex could sit near his grandma, who was hard of hearing. After hearing about Michael's foster situation, the very next week when he'd come over, she had waved away his respectful greeting of "Good Evening, Mrs. Manes," and officially declared that she was adopting him as her honorary grandson and that he was to call her Nana from now on. 

Michael had been dumbstruck with awe. Alex had blushed bright red but that didn't seem to keep him from smiling like a loon for the next half-hour either. Sergeant Manes had nearly choked on his beer in the kitchen and come storming into the room, apparently ready to raise hell, but stopped dead in his tracks at the steely sound of his name on his mother's lips. "That'll do, Jessup." And just like that, the man who had featured in more than one of Michael's nightmares as the quintessential military boogeyman reluctantly replied loud enough for his mother to hear, "Yes ma'am," turned on his heel, and slunk back into the kitchen with only minimal sounds of grating chairs, kerplunked beer bottles on wooden surfaces, and muffled curses over spilled moonshine.

Nana Manes was Michael's favorite person in the whole world.

Okay, well, second favorite person. 

He'd turned to Alex that night and silently mouthed the unfamiliar name to Alex, eyebrows disappearing underneath the curls dangling over his forehead, his lips then pressing together in a concerted effort to prevent any sounds of snickering from escaping. This was no easy task but he managed. Barely. Alex, who was apparently undergoing the same Herculean task, just shrugged and winked with a twinkle in those big brown chocolate milk eyes. 

Nana Manes was obviously Alex's favorite person in the whole world, too. 

Okay, well, second favorite person.

Every Friday night thereafter, Sergeant Manes tended not to be home all that much, either because of work, taking his wife out for date night, or excusing himself to go to his study after family dinner. And that was A-OK by Michael. Nana made him feel comfortable and safe and they developed a rapport that Michael had only ever read about in books or seen in movies: what it was like to have a grandparent who loved you unconditionally. He'd heard that was their "job" but he'd never actually believed it, until now. 

And she was sharp as a tack to boot. They had to turn up the sound so she could hear all the questions the contestants gave during the show, but Michael knew that Alex didn't mind as it had the unintended bonus of drowning out any mumbling and grumbling from the peanut gallery in the kitchen while dinner was being made (sometimes due to Michael's presence, he was sure, but other times due to how often the Sergeant got the questions wrong). He didn't reply to the answers on the show for the first few weeks, preferring to sit there quietly, enjoy the closeness of sitting right next to Alex, and absorb the ambience of the Manes' household. Alex would venture a question every now and then on the subjects he was more familiar with, but didn't seem to be terribly confident of answering. Nana would congratulate him whenever he got one right, and both of them got really excited when one of them would guess the correct question on Final Jeopardy!.

Michael started participating after had Alex leaned over one night, pressing their sides together from shoulder to knee in the process, and asked, without taking his eyes off the screen, "What, you don't like the show?" 

Michael actually loved the show, had watched it whenever he got the chance growing up, which wasn't very often, so he always enjoyed it all the more when he did get to see it. A show where you earned money for being smart. And quick. Smart and quick. Michael's two best kept secrets. Well, there was a _third_ one that was his best kept secret of all, but it was so ingrained in his head as such that he didn't even count it amongst his other secrets.

He rested his hand on the edge of his thigh so that whenever one of them shifted in their seats, his hand would brush up against Alex's thigh. "I think I could be the next Ken Jennings."

Alex and Nana had laughed good-naturedly at Michael's declaration, but then he started questioning the answers, and week after week, he got them right much more often than not. Alex's eyes started acquiring this round awed quality to them whenever Michael would go on a winning streak, and the line of plausible deniability regarding their platonic seating arrangement started getting thinner and thinner.

The first time Michael questioned a Final Jeopardy! answer correctly, that line almost disappeared altogether.

"Ok, now it's time for Final Jeopardy! Contestants ready? Here we go," Alex Trebek asked in that cultured, familiar, and friendly Canadian voice. "The answer is: THIS U.S. STATE IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE UNION TO USE A DIACRITICAL MARK IN ITS WRITTEN FORM. Contestants, you have thirty seconds."

As the world-famous do-do-do-do song played in the background, Alex and Nana started tossing out all the states that ended in the letter 's' on the presumption that the diacritical mark in question was an apostrophe. Michael watched them happily but withheld his answer until it was time for the contestants to answer. Alex Trebek asked them to set down their pens and repeated the answer. Before the contestant with the least amount of money earned could speak, Michael gave his response.

"What is, Hawai'i?"

Alex and Nana hadn't named that state and both turned to look at Michael in confusion. 

None of the contestants had thought of that state either, apparently, as about thirty seconds later, Alex Trebek kindly informed them, "No, I'm sorry, that is incorrect. The question is, 'What is Hawai'i?' Hawai'i. There's a special character known as a diacritical mark that is placed between the two "i's" in Hawai'i's name, but is not an apostrophe. Good game everyone, and we'll see you all at home tomorrow. Good night."

Alex's jaw dropped. Neither he nor his grandma had ever gotten the question right over a contestant before. And certainly, never over all three. One second Michael was sitting there enjoying the glow of Alex's surprised joy, and the next he suddenly had his arms full as Alex practically threw himself at Michael in what he figured was supposed to be a fraternal hug but felt more like foreplay, what with all the body parts currently rubbing against each other. 

Alex managed to regain control of his limbs a disappointingly short time later and re-deposited himself on his side of the couch with a bunch of throat-clearing and a shaky 'congratulations' spoken as he found the commercials to be suddenly quite interesting. Michael chuckled his thanks and was in the middle of smoothing out his curls when he caught a glimpse out of the left side of his peripheral vision of Nana hiding a snicker behind her hand and a twinkle in her eye as she gathered up her knitting to get ready for dinner.

Within a few months, that line of plausible deniability had become a magic trick. If the Sergeant was home, that line magically became as solid as a brick wall. If the Sergeant was not home, that line magically became as transparent as air and just as porous. Ever since Michael had discovered that Alex had an intelligence kink and got a hard-on for Michael every time that he questioned Final Jeopardy! correctly, especially when he beat out the contestants on the show, Michael found it harder and harder (pun definitely intended) not to _do_ something about it.

Hence the reason they started spending so much time in Michael's truck-bed out at Fraser's Homestead Ranch stargazing... or gazing at the stars in each other's eyes. Same diff.

On another night when the Sergeant was not at home, Michael and Alex were basically cuddled up together on their couch, except for that whole draping their limbs all over each other part. They were enjoying the show with Nana, who had been on a roll of her own, guessing a whole bunch of Jeopardy! and Double Jeopardy! answers correctly because they happened to have several categories that were favorites of hers or were from her career days in the Office of Strategic Services during and after World War II. Michael didn't know anything more about what her position or rank was because Alex told him it was classified and he didn't know either, but it did shine some light on her relationship with the Sergeant; and the consoling looks Michael caught her sending Alex's way whenever the Sergeant was in the midst of a particularly long soliloquy on the merits of an ROTC program at Roswell High that he obviously intended for Alex to join and thought was perfectly acceptable dinner table conversation.

At this point in the year, Alex and Nana would throw out their guesses for Final Jeopardy! and then ask Michael to give his question before the song ended so he would have time to explain himself. He was three for three that month, and hadn't yet gotten all four weeks in a month correct. Michael refused, politely of course, to answer Nana's requests for early explanations because he was a 'man of principles,' he told her sweetly, trying for an air of stately confidence. She chuckled softly at his stubbornness and quoted Groucho Marx at him about having other principles, but he wouldn't budge. So, being the super smart secret agent spy that she was, she got devious and used all the weapons at her disposal.

Michael admitted later that he never even saw it coming.

"Tonight, on Final Jeopardy!" Alex Trebek announced just after the commercial pause, "the answer is: IN THE ANCIENT ROMAN CALENDAR, WHICH LATER BECAME THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR STILL IN USE TODAY, THESE TWO MONTHS WERE THE 8TH AND 9TH MONTHS OF THE YEAR. This is an interesting one, folks. Thirty seconds."

"This one sounds like a trick question to me," Nana lamented as she pulled more yarn out of her bag and started a new row on that week's scarf. She was such a prolific knitter with so much free time on her hands that she donated most of the hats and scarves she made to the Roswell Community Medical maternity ward. "'August and September' sounds way too easy."

"And that's why you'd make an excellent contestant, Nana, you're too smart to fall for a trick question like that," Michael replied with an easy smile. Hah, what a concept. But that's how comfortable and safe Alex's grandma made him feel. Sometimes Michael found it hard to leave at the end of the night, for two reasons instead of just one. 

"Oh, you sweet talker, you," she tutted as she turned her attention to her grandson. "Alex, my boy, what do you think?"

Now, the only problem with sitting this close to Alex was that when he turned his head completely to his right to look Michael in the face, that brought his own face dangerously close to Michael's. At this close range, the focus on Alex's face kind of broke off into its constituent parts. Michael had his pick of staring into Alex's fathomless brown eyes that were too big to be real; looking at those cheekbones that just ached for him to trace a line from nadir to zenith; or those lips. Fuck, those lips... and that stubble. Stubble was a new thing that had happened recently. Michael had never kissed a dude with stubble before. Kinda stung a little bit but he liked it.

Wait a second, the lips were moving. The lips were definitely moving, forming words it looked like. Oh yeah, the lips were good at that, too. Wait, they were asking a question. Oh, right. The game show.

"What is, October and November?"

The lips smiled, which made Michael smile. He liked it when the lips smiled at him. That usually meant he got to kiss the lips. He thought this was a great time to do just that so he started to lean forward.

Michael snapped out of his lips-induced haze when pain zinged up his scalp from where Alex had just yanked on one of the curls just behind his ear. "Earth to Michael. This is Houston. Do you copy? Over."

Michael's brain frantically reset itself and spit out the explanation it knew it was supposed to be releasing after the contestants had spoken. "There used to be only ten months in the Roman calendar; _ôctō_ is Latin for eight, _novem_ is Latin for nine."

Except the contestants hadn't spoken yet. 

The last few bars of the Jeopardy! song filtered their way into Michael's ears and then he heard Alex Trebek asking the first contestant to give their question. Michael looked over at the television, confused. Then he looked over at Nana, who was wearing that universal facial expression of smug satisfaction, cleverly hidden behind a patina of wrinkles, laugh lines, and twinkling eyes. He was almost afraid to look back at Alex in case whatever weird time warp thing had just happened got him again.

"What is, October and November?"

But when he did look back at Alex, the expression that was waiting for him took his breath away. 

"Yes! You are correct, great job. The answer is there in the words, and those of you who have taken Latin or another Romance language probably thought this was one of the easier ones, but we wanted to see if we could throw some of you for a loop. Perhaps some of the folks watching at home got it, too."

Michael exhaled loudly. 

Alex was looking at him like he'd hung the moon.

"SOUP'S ON!"

Both boys jumped at the sudden sounds of the front door slamming and a bellow echoing in from the kitchen. As a military officer, the Sergeant certainly knew how to make himself heard inside a mess hall. Alex was more conditioned than Michael was to the klaxon call of his father and had made a mad dash for the dining room before Michael could so much as take in another deep breath. 

What the ever-loving fuck was going on with him the last few minutes?

"My boy's sweet on you, you know," Nana's sweet little voice broke through the fog and Michael turned to regard her as she slowly made her way towards the dining room.

"He is?" Michael already knew to whom she was referring. Alex was the only one she called 'my boy'. She would occasionally refer to her other grandsons, but always by name, sometimes the wrong one (and sometimes on purpose). And the Sergeant tended to get called by his unique full first name because he seemed to raise her ire more often than not. Michael still got a kick out of it each and every time. But the reason for his tag question was why _she_ was telling him this.

"Oh, yes. Clear as those cute little curls of yours. From the first time you came over I could tell. My boy doesn't exactly have the best poker face. In fact, he's rather horrible at poker, too. Gets intimidated by bully tactics and doesn't know when to stand or fold." She patted his shoulder in a comforting gesture as she made her way past the couch where he was still rooted to the spot. "You've had to wear yours a long time already I fear, but I wager it's a formidable one. You look like you know your way around a card table. You should teach him how to bluff. Might come in handy someday."

Michael was dumbstruck with awe once again. "Yes, ma'am. I will. Th-thanks."

~*~

The dust image of Alex had morphed into the one from Michael's memory of the first time he tried to teach him how to bluff at poker. That night had been a hot mess. They'd given up playing cards after an hour or so and Michael had tried to teach him how to bluff his way through other things instead. On top of the table, underneath the table. Michael was a good teacher. Alex was an even better student. But maybe he should have tried harder to teach him how to stand up to bully tactics without folding or showing his hand prematurely.

He looked up at the laughing effigy and couldn't help smiling that easy smile from an easier time in any case. 

"Michael?"

The cowboy turned around to see Isobel picking her way through the scrub brush, trying not to let her long dress get caught on any brambles.

He was suddenly bone-tired. "Hey, Iz."

She looked up at the shimmering image that was slowly floating away on the breeze. "Who was that?"

Michael watched the dust particles twinkle until they were indistinguishable from the blanket of stars thrown across the crown of the sky. "Oh, just someone who would have risked everything to save me... once upon a time."

Her eyes grew wide with sympathy. "Isn't that what you've always wanted? Someone to come down out of the stars and save you?"

Michael shook his head sadly as he turned back towards Max's hacienda, wrapping an arm around his sister's shoulders as they wandered slowly back.

"Doesn't matter what I want. What matters is keeping you and Max safe."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery Disclaimers: _Jeopardy!_ and everything associated with it belong to the awesome people who make that show. 
> 
> The first Final Jeopardy! question was a real one from the show and I remember being the only one who got the answer right when I watched the show that night, which floored me lol. The second one is just a cool language trivia fact that I wanted to share. The Roman calendar used to be only 10 months long because the winter months weren't counted, which is kind of funny. January and February were added to make the calendar cover an entire lunar year, which is why the months got shifted over two "spots" but their names didn't change. And that concludes today's mini language!geek history lesson (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵).


	5. S1E5: You Don't Know How Far I'd Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's chapter comes with fanart (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵).
> 
> A big hug to annunziatina ♥ for cheering me on while I wrestled with the challenge of writing more dialogue for this chapter 
> 
> Non-spoilery Disclaimers: Characters, places, lyrics, and pop culture references belong to their respective creators. See End Notes for chapter-spoilery disclaimers.

Michael slouched in the kitchen/living/dining/office chair of his oh-so-spacious Airstream, contemplating his navel. Most days, he didn't actually feel confined by the close quarters of his "toaster-on-wheels" but tonight, sitting here amongst the skeletons that had come tumbling out of the closet over the past few days, the caravan was starting to feel a little cramped. 

It didn't stop him, however, from bouncing a tennis ball off the curved surface of the pock-marked aluminum wall over his bed where Isobel was fitfully sleeping off her exhaustion and terror. Back and forth. Back and forth. It was a meditative process, a repetitive tedium that gave his fidgety hands something to do while his mind careened around the inside of his skull like a pinball game being played by an over-enthusiastic kid with no skills or strategy, just brute force. 

The tennis ball made no sound as it hit its mark and came directly back to Michael each time he tossed it back from whence it came. He was in no mood to worry about trifling matters such as acoustics or the laws of physics. He didn't want to wake up his sister. His sister, whom he'd been trying to protect from her own memories for the past ten years. He sighed as he sent the ball flying back towards the wall, catching it with his left hand, then his right. Left. Right. Left. Right. The monotony was soothing.

Maybe he shouldn't have asked her to get back inside Liz's head after all this time. Maybe she'd accidentally opened Pandora's box when she went digging around in Liz's psyche during a time when the foremost thought on Liz's mind was her dead sister, the very person Michael had been trying to keep Isobel from thinking about all this time. Why he was always reminding her that Rosa was a topic the three of them were never supposed to bring up again. 

Leave the past buried or it might end up burying you, too.

Maybe that's what was causing the blackouts. The human brain will shut down and pack away memories that it feels threaten its chance of survival. A defense mechanism that even alien hybrids seemed to have adapted. Perhaps when Isobel went poking around in Liz's subconscious, a few of those memories crept into Isobel's head and got stuck there.

She made a quiet whimpering sound as she shifted under the covers. He'd been keeping a vigil over her sleep while he let his mind race; every so often she'd start whimpering in her sleep and he'd pause his game of pong to rub her back and whisper soothing sounds into her ear until she settled into sleep again. Then he would resume his game.

He changed his trajectory to throw and catch the tennis ball in front of his forehead, a steeper angle at an increased pace. He hadn't dropped the ball yet, not from magic though, just skill and hours and hours of practice.

Michael didn't regret telling her. He'd help her get through this, but enough was enough and he just didn't want to lie like a rug anymore. Not to Isobel. Not to Max. Not to... 

Alex.

Michael exhaled loudly.

Oh, Alex.

Michael's eyes drifted over the ephemera tacked to the walls arching over the bed as he continued the game by rote. The items stuck there would seem inconsequential to anyone else but to Michael, they constituted the precious few mementos of his childhood and teenage years. One of his first crayon drawings of what he believed his parents' ship might look like; a ticket from his first trip to Carlsbad Caverns with Max and Isobel's family as a cover for a research trip into a natural space big enough to hide an intact space ship; a wrinkled, time-worn chemistry test marked with an A++ and the kind words "you have a bright future ahead of you" written next to the grade in now-faded red marking pen; a square postcard with a famous quote on the front – a very special present from Alex.

Michael's breath caught in his throat, his hands dropped to his lap, and the tennis ball hit him smack dab in the middle of his forehead. Bull's eye. He couldn't believe he'd actually forgotten that was up there. Well, not forgotten forgotten. He could never forget about anything Alex had given to him. But it'd been a while since he'd played this meditative game in his caravan, just taking in his surroundings and letting his mind wander over the evidence of his existence on this plane.

He stood up and reached for the postcard with one hand as his other hand absently rubbed at the slightly itchy red spot left over from the tennis ball's impact. He settled back down in the chair, feet propped up on one corner of the foot of his bed so that he'd still be within reach of where the blanket met Isobel's shoulders for when she inevitably started whimpering again.

Michael turned the card end over end with his fingers a few times, running his forefinger along the wobbly edge that dipped in places where it had been dinged over the years; letting the memories crest towards him like the tide rolling in; with every swell a little closer, with every rip tide the pull towards the past a little stronger. 

He stopped rotating the card, read the quote, and then flipped it over to read the handwritten note, letting the sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch of that week in high school wash over him, enveloping his mind in the warm embrace of Alex's gift from all those years ago.

~*~

Alex wasn't what Michael would call a twitchy guy. A little anxious maybe, but who wouldn't be when you had Sergeant Jesse "I was absent the day they were handing out personalities" Manes for a father? But for the life of him, Michael couldn't quite put his finger on why Alex had seemed, well, twitchy the past couple days. 

It wasn't anything big or worrisome, but you know how sometimes you just seem to have a built-in radar for a person or an object or a color, and your eye just keeps getting caught on it throughout the day? Well, that's how Michael felt about Alex at school one week in February, senior year of high school. Granted, Michael would have known where Alex was in a blizzard under white-out conditions, but still. 

On Monday, Alex slid out of homeroom just as Michael was passing by on his way to AP Chem to ask, apropos of nothing, "Can I borrow your AP Chem notes later? Oh, and by the bye, what was the name of that astronomer dude you're always reading about?"

"Uh, sure. You mean Carl Sagan?"

" ~~Crap, way off~~ , um, I mean, yes! That's the one, ok thanks, uh, for the notes gottagobye."

And back he slid into his classroom like they'd just finished a much longer conversation and Alex hadn't realized the time. Michael just shook his head fondly and carried on to the chem lab.

On Tuesday, Michael was eating his lunch out in the quad in his usual corner under a swaying palm tree where no one went because it didn't afford them a place to see and be seen, hence the reason Michael had claimed it as his own, when Alex randomly walked up and plopped himself down next to the other teenager like he did this every day. 

Alex did not, in fact, do this every day. This was a first, actually. 

High school cliques being what they were, Michael knew his place in the hierarchy and it was somewhere near the bottom rung. He was okay with this as it afforded him a certain amount of invisibility which he used to keep his nose clean and his skin free of stitches. Michael was also okay with not hanging out with Alex during school; he didn't really play well with others anyway and he liked to have Alex all to himself when they spent time together (also because some, okay, most of the things they liked to do together weren't really fit for public consumption anyway). Alex, on the other hand, was somewhere near the top rung, and rightly so if Michael had anything to say about it. Alex was the best kind of popular: attractive, friendly, outgoing, but not just towards his fellow A-listers. Alex was kind and courteous and generous with everyone. Those were the defining character traits that set him apart from the other kind of popular kids, like that douchebag Kyle Valenti. 

So, if Alex wanted to visit Michael in the place everyone knew was Michael's spot, which therefore meant that Alex had approached him, everything was copacetic. But if Michael had dared to, say, visit Alex on the amphitheater steps where his band and their groupies sunned themselves like lizards in between playing air guitar and stealing each other's fries, well, things could get ugly, depending on whose turn it was to play bully. Sometimes, Michael could swear it was a tag-team effort to pass the stupid around. 

Michael set down his sandwich and his well-worn copy of _Contact_ next to the tube of _Pelon Pelo Rico_ he'd brought for dessert and regarded Alex with a raised eyebrow; mouth currently full of tuna salad, curls threatening to blow into his suddenly vulnerable eye in the midday desert breeze.

"Hey, so um, do you still have those AP Chem notes I was asking you about earlier? I gotta test tomorrow and this unit on Stoichiometry is kicking my ass."

Michael snorted through his nose since laughing wasn't currently an option with a mouth full of food. He leaned over to pull the notes from his backpack and hand them over to a shifty-looking Alex.

"Thanks, man. I'll give 'em back to you before first bell."

Michael just smiled in response and tipped his cowboy hat in acknowledgment as he took a pull from the straw in his bottle of root beer. It was probably best that this exchange be short and sweet lest he provoke any of the knuckle-draggers who were probably straining to see what was going on across the quad.

Alex cleared his throat but didn't say anything else. He looked everywhere but into Michael's eyes as he rose to his feet and waved at him with the AP Chem notes clutched tightly in one hand like he was afraid they'd slip out and fly away in a spectacular array of paper butterflies as he hurried back to his coven.

Michael watched him go, enjoying the view. Once Alex had parked his cute little ass on the concrete steps, Michael tucked back into his food and his book, only to notice a few minutes later once he'd polished off his sandwich that he couldn't find his Mexican _tamarindo_ candy anywhere, even after he picked up all his things and stood up to do a pirouette. Huh. 

Curiouser and curiouser.

On Wednesday, Alex was waiting for him out in front of the school near his first period classroom when Michael pulled up in his Chevy shortly before the first bell was set to ring. The notes were now encased in a dark blue pocket folder to protect them and Michael had a sneaky suspicion that they were still in the same pristine condition from the day before when he'd handed them over, instead of slightly puffy and bent from constant shuffling during a last-minute study session.

Alex looked both ways like he was preparing to cross the street before stepping into Michael's personal space to hand the notes back. "Here you go."

"Maybe you're applying to the wrong branch of the military." At Alex's half-startled, half-confused reaction, Michael clarified his meaning. "Your pick-pocketing skills are pretty fly but your lying needs work if you're going to be a good spook; it's passable though, had me going until I got home last night, so I suppose the CIA probably has a remedial class on Lying for Beginners." There was no heat behind his words, and he was having trouble keeping the smirk off his face. Alex was actually looking at him today, so at least he didn't miss the non-verbal cues. 

"Ha ha you're a laugh riot. You should do stand-up. And hey, fun fact, the CIA is a government agency, not a branch of the military, genius." 

"Potato potahtoe. But, seriously, if you had picked a class you're actually taking _this_ semester, instead of one you already aced in the Fall, I would have been none the wiser."

Alex groaned and smacked his hoodie-covered forehead into the center of Michael's chest. Bolstered by all the closeness that Alex was sharing with him right now, something that Michael had never had the privilege to experience at school, he decided to press his luck and wrap his arms loosely around Alex's waist. This was unusual behavior for Alex, though, as he was always so careful about maintaining their secret relationship. So, as nice as this was, Michael needed to know what was going on so he could fix it.

"Hey," he said softly into Alex's hoodie, "bell's gonna ring soon. What's wrong, _corazón mío_?"

Kids were starting to stream past the two of them and Michael pulled Alex's black hoodie a little farther forward, thankful for the non-descript blue jeans and black flip-flops his secret boyfriend was wearing. If they stayed really still for the next couple of minutes, maybe nobody would recognize Alex Manes being cuddled in Michael Guerin's arms in the middle of the parking lot at New Roswell High.

Alex snaked his arms under the back of Michael's unbuttoned blue flannel long-sleeve and ubiquitous white undershirt, that staple of cowboy attire, and squeezed a little as he mumbled his answer into the warm skin of his neck. "Nothing's wrong."

Michael highly doubted that, but he didn't want to pry.

The first bell rang. Its shrill tone made Alex jump slightly so Michael rubbed soothing circles into his lower back as he waited for the last few stragglers to pass them in the lot. 

"Ok, all clear."

Alex grumbled something unintelligible and reluctantly pulled his head off of Michael's chest. He made to turn away to go to class with a mumbled "see ya later" but Michael caught a wrist and turned him back around. "Are you sure you're fine?"

Alex looked into Michael's eyes for a long, searching moment. "I'm always fine when I'm with you."

He let their fingers slide away from each other and had just entered his first period classroom as the second bell rang. 

Michael was late to homeroom. Not that anyone noticed.

On Thursday, Michael didn't see Alex at all. Well, the front of him anyway. He looked up at one point in Autobody when that Spidey sense thing that'd been going on all week made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and thought he caught the back of Alex's bed head slipping out through the man door of the garage. Michael would recognize that tousled look anywhere as he was the one responsible for tousling it on a regular basis. But Alex wasn't in this class, so wtf...

Michael put down the dipstick he'd been using to check the oil on the clunker they were working on and walked over to the deep sink to wash his hands. Maybe Alex left him a note in his backpack or something. They were always leaving little curiosities in each other's packs that they thought the other one might enjoy. 

He pulled a square postcard out of his backpack. A furrow formed between his eyes, pulling down on the 'do rag he was wearing to protect his curls from the grease of the open hood.

"Hey, Ángel? What's the date today?"

 _¿Mande?_ echoed the reply from the undercarriage of the old truck where Michael's classmate was currently ensconced.

 _"La fecha de hoy,"_ Michael repeated, a little louder.

Ángel slid out from underneath the engine on one of those roller pad things, looking upside down at Michael. _"El catorce de febrero, ¿por qué?"_

Michael was still staring down at the postcard like he'd never seen one before. Well, truth be told, he never had, not one addressed to him anyway. Ángel came over and peered into Michael's backpack. 

_"Mira, ¡alguien te dio un regalito del día de San Valentín, how cute!"_ he said cheerfully.

Michael managed to drag his eyes away from the – the valentine, apparently – to look at a bag full of those traditional little candy hearts with little messages on them, but there seemed to be something covering them that he didn't remember seeing on the hearts all the other kids enjoyed when they got valentines from their friends in elementary school. 

_"Vaya,"_ Ángel sounded as surprised as Michael looked as he held up a small Ziploc baggy that was a globby mess of red paste stuck in all manner of ways to the little hearts, the little messages on some of them already worn off from friction and heat. Well, at least that solved the mystery of why Alex had swiped his _tamarindo_ candy a few days ago.

Michael opened the bag and popped a few of the sticky hearts into his mouth and just barely managed to contain a moan of pleasure as the shockingly sweet, spicy, and tangy mixture fizzed in his mouth.

Fuck that tasted good. It was obvious now that Alex had mixed this bag together especially for Michael as a gift. He'd remembered Michael's penchant ( _"your taste buds are whacked, dude, what a strange one you are" "and i'm all yours, aren't you lucky" "mmm... incredibly so"_ ) for super sweet mixed with super spicy foods. Nothing tasted as good as a kiss from Alex, but these little hearts were a close second.

Ángel pulled him away from his food porn with a sudden exclamation. _"¡Mierda!_ I forgot to get reservations at his favorite restaurant for our anniversary tonight," he ran his hand nervously through his jet-black locks and Michael winced a little at all the grease that, well, actually, kinda just disappeared into that mass of slicked down hair. But it would still be a bitch to wash out later.

He smiled at his friend. "How long you and Jesús been together now?"

 _"Dos años,"_ the grin on his face was huge and proud. Two years. Michael still had trouble believing he and Alex had been together for five months, in secret. He could barely fathom two years, let alone for all the world to see. But he'd always been a hopeless romantic so the dream stayed alive.

 _"Les felicito,"_ Michael clapped Ángel on the shoulder, wishing that he and Alex could be making their own dinner reservations for a romantic evening out tonight at a public restaurant.

 _"Gracias, tío."_ Ángel rushed off to make a phone call and gave Michael the thumbs up a minute later when it looked like he'd been able to score a reservation for two after all. He returned the gesture and smiled at his friend as he went back to work underneath the old jalopy. 

Michael forgot all about restaurants and reservations and anniversaries, however, when he looked back down at the valentine in his hands. He'd never received one before. He'd been distracted earlier by the existence of this card in his hands and hadn't gotten around to parsing the words yet; when he read the quote on the front, his breath got caught in his throat, his mouth frozen open in a moue of awe.

[ ](http://mythras-fire.dreamwidth.org/file/40485.jpg)

Michael turned the card over with trembling hands. On the reverse, there was a note written in Alex's small, neat – for a guy – print. It posed a simple question and was unsigned. Michael felt the backs of his eyeballs starting to burn as his fingers passed over Alex's inked words. 

_Will you be my valentine, Starman?_

 

The drive home that night was a strange one. Michael had gone through the rest of his day in a sort of daze. He was glad he had such a knack for fixing cars because his head was up in outer space, forget the clouds. He turned the radio on to give his mind something terrestrial to fixate on while he tried to get his brain to focus on the highway. Staying on his side of the road was generally regarded as a good thing.

Rock music immediately began blasting out through the speakers and Michael shook his head with a laugh as he turned the volume dial down from the crackling max level. His old Chevy could only crank out the tunes so high, which was always disappointing Alex. Michael had jokingly suggested one time that maybe Alex should get closer to the speakers if he was already that deaf but then had to reach over and pull the giant dork back into his seat when he actually leaned forward to do it. 

Michael was more of a bluesy country acoustic kind of guy but he could jam to classic rock when the mood struck. And hey, speak of the devil, the next song that came on was, in fact, an acoustic song from a hard rock band he'd been thinking about recently, one which he thought might be a fun duet for him and Alex to sing when they were just kickin' it after practicing for their next gig. He'd never paid any attention to the lyrics before though, had always been more attracted to the tune, but if they were going to sing it, he should probably start learning the words, huh. Genius. Yeps, that's what they called him. 

One of the advantages of a two-lane asphalt highway making a snail's trail through the desert was that as long as you turned slightly to the right, there was always an infinite shoulder available for emergency roadside stops. Or emergency U-turns, as Michael utilized halfway through _More Than Words_ by Extreme, about a mile outside the town limits as he reversed course and made a beeline for the small but stylish two-story stucco house on a tree-lined suburban street, his mind focused entirely on one very clever, very lovely human being.

 

It was late when Michael pulled his truck up to the curb around the corner from Alex's house. Late enough that the Sergeant was home for the night and all the lights in the front of the house were out. Michael was not deterred. He had zero fucks to give if the Sergeant was home or not. The only light in the backyard came from the moon peeking out from behind the cirrus clouds being blown across the sky on a cool night breeze.

He snuck around to the back of the house and had already started to push himself skywards in his own personal elevator when he heard Alex's voice drifting out of his open second-story bedroom window. He was singing softly while strumming his acoustic guitar, which sounded like it had fret wraps on to dampen the sound released by the strings. Michael almost fell into the trellis growing up the side of the house underneath Alex's window as his concentration faltered when he recognized what song he was singing. 

_Keeping my eyes open, I cannot afford to sleep. Giving away promises I know that I can't keep._

All bets were off now. Michael's sense of self-preservation went flying off into the night as he floated up past the bottom edge of the window sill.

_Nothing fills the blackness that has seeped into my chest. I need you in my blood I am forsaking all the rest._

He caught sight of Alex lying on his bed, tucked into the corner of the room across from the window, bedroom door closed, head propped up on some pillows, guitar across his lap, eyes closed and totally lost in the moment. 

His secret boyfriend strummed the guitar with a flourish as he followed the lyrics into the chorus. _"Just to reach you, just to reach you, oh to reach you, oh,"_

Michael suddenly felt compelled to do just that. 

_"Come to my window. Crawl inside, wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window, I'll be home soon."_

He lifted his legs and sat down on the window sill, careful not to bang his head on the open window.

 _"I don't care what they think. I don't care what they say."_ Alex opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling as he played the next part with extra verve and passion, his voice smooth as honey as he kept the volume low. 

Michael stared, transfixed, afraid to blink lest this all be a dream from which he never wanted to wake.

 _"What do they know about this love,"_ Alex quietly shouted as his eyes moved down the ceiling to his window across the room, still strumming his beautiful heart out. " _Anyway_ –ahh!"

Michael stayed absolutely still except for his facial muscles, which morphed into a rather sheepish expression as he realized how creepy this might actually look. 

It was a rather strangled cry of surprise dragged out by the last word Alex had been singing and he managed to hang onto the guitar, so there were no crashing sounds or screams to worry about.

"What the fuck, Guerin?! Scare me half to death, why don't you!" Alex sat up to whisper-yell at him. 

"Sorry!" Michael couldn't help grinning as he whispered back, which of course made it look like he was anything but sorry. Which, ok, well yeah, he wasn't sorry for being here, just for having startled his man.

Alex's eyes were no longer bugging out and his chest was no longer heaving, so that was good. Until he looked down at his guitar, up at Michael, then back down to the instrument. "Wait, does this mean you're psychic, too?" 

The young cowboy could follow his train of thought easily enough, as this _was_ a rather odd coincidence of Michael appearing in Alex's window while he was singing about someone asking their lover to come to their window. But he wasn't sure where this "too" business was coming from.

He didn't get a chance to ask him about it though because there was something else that Alex had just noticed that made his naturally pale skin flush a pretty crimson. Oh, right. Michael looked down at the valentine and mostly empty bag of sticky hearts he had been clutching in one hand ever since he got out of the truck.

Michael looked up at Alex through his lashes, curls floating around his face in the breeze blowing past him, exhaled loudly, and answered the other question Alex had asked him today.

"Yes."

It was Alex's turn to stare, transfixed.

Michael started to slide down into the room but stopped when Alex's eyes grew round with panic, flew to the door, and then back to Michael. He shot out a hand for him to stay put. The young musician carefully set the guitar down next to him on the bed and quickly padded over to the window.

Alex's big brown eyes were full of questions and he seemed to be having a hard time choosing which one he wanted to ask first. His gaze settled on the bag of sticky hearts resting against Michael's thigh. He poked at one and looked up at Michael shyly. "Were they any good?"

Michael slowly snaked his cowboy boots around the backs of Alex's pajama-clad calves, drawing the other boy towards him. He opened the bag and pulled out one of the hearts that didn't have as much _tamarindo_ glommed onto it as some of the others and held it up by a thumb and forefinger, raising an eyebrow in challenge. Alex wasn't that big a fan of sweet and spicy mixed together so he grimaced slightly but opened his mouth anyway, eyes locked on each other, always up for accepting a dare when it came from him.

Michael's heart skipped a beat.

He gently placed the candy heart on the tip of Alex's tongue, which then receded behind those lips that had a tendency to drive him to distraction, and were now closed around his fingers, sucking the sticky paste off the pads with his talented tongue. Wild horses couldn't have dragged Michael away in that moment. His own mouth had gone a little slack-jawed and his breathing was getting shallower with each inhale. This reaction seemed to amuse Alex, who smiled as he released his fingers with a final lick, and selected a much more globby heart from the bag as he chewed the one Michael had given him, his grimace returning momentarily. He mirrored Michael's movements, placing the candy on his tongue and watching with avid fascination as his thumb and forefinger disappeared inside his mouth. 

There was no way in hell Michael was going to be able to contain a moan this time so he just tried to keep it quiet instead. His eyelids fluttered closed of their own accord as he savored so much more than just the flavors of his favorite candy. His tongue darted out to caress Alex's fingers, and his arms wrapped around his secret boyfriend's waist to pull him flush against his body, their heated skin and hard lines rubbing together minutely to create a deliciously slow friction. The ensuing gasp from the lips only inches from his own made him sigh with pleasure and he let the fingers fall from his mouth with a soft 'pop' as he leaned forward to capture those precious lips with his own, unable to wait one second more to enjoy an Alex kiss.

And, well, those candy hearts tasted even better now.

Michael started to slide down Alex's body into his bedroom because he wasn't close enough; he needed to feel all of Alex's skin against his, here, alone in his room where they were never allowed to be with the door closed. Alex's hands slid up into Michael's curls as the taller boy's feet met carpet on either side of Alex's legs. Both of them hissed out breaths of pleasure as their cocks finally found each other through several layers of clothing. Michael began walking Alex backwards towards his bed, cupping his lover's face in his hands as he continued to – 

KNOCK 

KNOCK 

KNOCK

Michael opened his eyes with a start, pupils still dilated from arousal, his amygdala going haywire as it tried to locate the danger.

KNOCK

KNOCK

KNOCK

If the Sergeant walked in and saw Michael kissing Alex, there was no telling what he'd do. Michael needed to make a fight or flight decision _now_ beyond the prime directive to KEEP ALEX SAFE.

"Michael!"

Wait, what? "Max?"

Michael turned his head towards the incongruous voice and that's when the familiar walls of the Airstream swam blearily back into view as he realized he'd fallen asleep in his chair, the valentine tucked safely between his crossed arms and his chest. A ray of early morning sunlight stabbed him in the eye as Max opened the door and poked his head inside. "C'mon, man, Isobel's already in the car. Let's go, breakfast at my place."

Michael ran a hand down over his face as he tried to slow his breathing, noticed his bed was indeed now empty, then held the other one up to shade his eyes from the sun as he regarded Max with his best 'fuck-off' glare. "What, cockblocking me during the day isn't enough, now you gotta do it in my sleep, too?" Shit, his voice sounded ragged.

"What, I can't help it if my dick's bigger than yours," Max looked pointedly down at where Michael's jeans were still tented from his dream about Alex. "Or that you have to resort to kinky-ass dream-walking to get your rocks off."

Michael snorted. "Oh, it's not the size of your dick that matters, bro, it's what you do with it." He grinned wolfishly at Max but it was more teeth than smile.

Max made a bitch face at that snarky retort, pushed off the door frame where he'd been leaning and turned away to go back to his car. "Just get your ass outta that trailer and let's get a move on."

"By the way, it's not your dick that's bigger," Michael called after him. "It's your ego."

And just like that, Max turned on his heels to glare at Michael. Oh, he had him in his sights now. Michael was feeling grumpy after being so rudely interrupted from his dreamtime with Alex and Max was an easy mark.

"Besides, you don't have the tiniest clue what, or whom, I do to get my rocks off." Max's glare became a scowl. "And it's not a trailer, it's a fucking vintage 1975 Airstream Overlander International Caravan. If I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times!"

"Fine, whatever!" Max threw up his hands in exasperation and stomped back over to the car, yelling over his shoulder, "Just get your cranky alien ass out of your hi-falutin' caravan and into the car or I'm eating all your bacon and pancakes!"

"You touch my bacon and you're a dead man!" Michael yelled back as he yanked on a flannel shirt, grabbed his cowboy hat, and stuffed his feet back into his shoes. He was about to duck his head through the low door to leave his home when his hand brushed the valentine he'd set down on the counter when he'd gotten up to gather his things. 

He looked wistfully at the back of the postcard and for a split second, he could hear the strains of that song floating out that bedroom window, taste those candy hearts, and feel the simple joy of being in Alex's arms. He carefully pinned the reverse side of the valentine to the wall over his bed, kissed the pads of the fore and middle fingers of his left hand and touched the place where his secret boyfriend had asked him a very special question, one that meant more to him than any mere words could ever express.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilery Disclaimers: [Pelon Pelo Rico](http://mythras-fire.dreamwidth.org/file/41100.jpg) is a popular Mexican candy that I used to eat sometimes when I was a kid and it had a fun mix of tamarind flavors: spicy, tangy, and sweet in a sticky red paste that you squeezed out of a little tube with a bunch of holes in the top, which made it look like hair, hence the name (pelo is Spanish for hair).
> 
> Let's learn some Spanish words ^^! I've decided that Michael is going to be bilingual in my headcanon <3\. The term of endearment he calls Alex, _corazón mío_ means 'my heart'.
> 
> Below is the English translation of the Spanish parts of the convo Michael has with Ángel (I tried not to get too carried away but I'm not sure I succeeded ahaha :P ):  
> ¿Mande? - What? (when someone hasn't heard what you've said)  
> La fecha de hoy - Today's date  
> El catorce de febrero, ¿por qué? - February 14th, why?  
> Mira, ¡alguien te dio un regalito del día de San Valentín, how cute! - Look, someone gave you a little Valentine's Day gift, how cute!  
> Vaya - Whoa  
> tamarindo - tamarind  
> ¡Mierda! - Shit!  
> Dos años - Two years  
> Les felicito - Congratulations (to both of you)  
> Gracias, tío - Thanks, man
> 
> The quote on Michael's valentine belongs to the late astronomer Carl Sagan. I really like the enormity of what those few words mean about us being made of starstuff. It's such a fantastically true concept. _Contact_ is a science fiction novel written by Sagan that explores what communication with a more technologically-advanced alien civilization might be like.
> 
> Chapter title words are lyrics from _Come to My Window_ , which belongs to Melissa Etheridge. I've always loved the imagery and message of this song and, clearly, it was destined to be used in a Malex fanfic set 15 years after its release in 1993 ♥
> 
> I spent way too much time on Google Image Search trying to locate a photo of Michael's Airstream for my snarky sibling rivalry convo at the end of the chapter not to include the link here once I found it! So, as far as I can tell, this is the most similar model I could find: [1975 Airstream Overlander International](https://vintagekraft.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/1975-airstream-overlander-international-27-trailer/).


	6. S1E5 Coda: To Sleep Perchance To Dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For bgn (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵), who asked to see what the rest of Michael's dream looked like at the end of Chapter 5. This coda picks up right after Michael slips into Alex's room.
> 
> Disclaimer: Characters and pop culture references belong to their respective creators.

Michael started to slide down Alex's body into his bedroom because he wasn't close enough; he needed to feel all of Alex's skin against his, here, alone in his room where they were never allowed to be with the door closed. Alex's hands slid up into Michael's curls as the taller boy's feet met carpet on either side of Alex's legs. Both of them hissed out breaths of pleasure as their cocks finally found each other through several layers of clothing. Michael began walking Alex backwards towards his bed, cupping his lover's face in his hands as he continued to – 

KNOCK 

KNOCK 

KNOCK

Michael opened his eyes with a start, pupils still dilated from arousal, his amygdala going haywire as it tried to locate the danger.

"Lights out, Alex," the Sergeant called from the other side of Alex's door. 

Both teenagers froze midstride, twin looks of panic on their startled faces. Michael made a split-second decision to lock the door with his mind as Alex simultaneously called out to his father, in a rather stilted falsetto, "Yes, sir! Goodnight," his voice breaking awkwardly on the last word.

Michael held his breath, ready to make a diving leap for the window; he'd unlock the door as soon he was outside because he didn't want any trouble for Alex with the Sergeant, he just needed that two-second head start.

Manes' voice sounded gruff and echoed funny through the wooden door, almost as if he were speaking into his chest, "Go gargle something, you uh, you sound terrible," and then his footsteps could be heard stomping off to his room at the other end of the hallway, the door closing with an audible click. 

The musical sound of crickets and the warm softness of the desert breeze filled the room until they became muted once more by the exhalations of the two very relieved young men still frozen in their embrace from only moments ago. Michael could feel Alex's heart pounding away inside his chest and knew his secret boyfriend could feel his as well. There was also a small vein throbbing on Alex's temple, keeping tempo with his heart, until Michael bent forward and gently kissed it. When he leaned back the vein had relaxed and the skin was smooth once more.

Alex smiled beatifically up at Michael, then pulled out of his embrace and turned towards the door as he whispered, "I'm just gonna go turn off the light and..." Michael looked up from where he was relocating the guitar at the sound of Alex's voice trailing off. He saw Alex looking at the locked doorknob with his head tilted askew and he could practically see the gears turning in his head, trying to remember if he'd already locked the door himself. Michael's stomach dropped into his shoes and he had to turn around and busy himself with setting Alex's precious guitar down as gently as possible into its stand near the dresser, lightly caressing the neck to keep from just blurting out everything he'd ever wanted to tell the only human he'd ever wanted to know about who he really was. 

Michael sat down heavily on the bed and rubbed his hands nervously up and down his thighs to try to soothe that inner ache that never really went away. His eye caught on the valentine which had fallen to the floor when he'd slid into the room a few minutes ago and he got up to retrieve it and tuck it safely into the inside pocket of his jean jacket, which he shucked and laid across a chair on the other side of the dresser. When Michael turned around, Alex was back in his original position on the bed and making grabby hands at him. 

He was even more beautiful in the darkness, lit only by the light of the moon floating in through the open window, shadows from a neighbor's tree dancing across his smiling face. The ache in Michael's heart eased somewhat and he eagerly crawled up the bed, still clad in his cowboy boots in case he had to make a quick getaway.

"Now, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted?" Michael asked into Alex's neck as his lips went in search of that one particular spot that made Alex's leg kick out in a knee-jerk reaction. Two seconds later, Alex whisper-moaned and Michael felt one of his legs spasm lightly under the weight of his own legs and hummed a chuckle into the warmth of his neck. 

"Eureka."

Alex giggled and wrapped his arms and legs around Michael in his best impression of an octopus capturing its prey, making all sorts of utterly delicious noises into Michael's curls as he wriggled around dropping kisses onto the exposed skin along Alex's sternum. He had to pause in his ministrations when Alex let loose a particularly loud moan of surprise as Michael mouthed at his left nipple through the thin cotton of his Matchbox Twenty pajama t-shirt.

" _Tranquilo, corazón,_ " Michael whispered as he perched himself on his forearms to reach up and peck Alex on the lips, nose, forehead. "We don't want any company now, do we?"

Alex shook his head solemnly like this question was serious business, his chocolate brown eyes focused intently on Michael's light brown ones as much as they could be from three inches away.

"What does that word mean? I know you've told me before but I keep forgetting."

Michael smiled fondly as he lay back down on Alex's stomach. He smoothed out the t-shirt and this time when he kissed Alex's left pectoral muscle, slowly, reverently, it wasn't sexual. He looked up at Alex from under his lashes and enjoyed the view as the lightbulb went on in Alex's head and he blushed.

"Oh," he whispered, this time not even having to remember to do so on purpose. "I sh-should be able to remember it ff-from now on," he blinked rapidly. "Thanks, visual learner and all," he paused to take a deep breath, "all that."

"My pleasure."

Alex brushed his fingers through Michael's curls and the scalp massage that came with those questing fingers nearly made Michael come right there on the spot, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. He'd been at half-mast since they reconvened on the bed, enjoying the tingling sensation in all of his extremities but trying to keep from over-exciting himself since the chances of either of them keeping quiet during their climax were slim to none. He had to kiss his moans into Alex's mouth in the hopes that they'd be absorbed by his secret boyfriend's body instead of escaping out into the ether. 

When Michael could no longer remember when he had last drawn a breath and was starting to see stars before his eyes, a thought wiggled its way to the surface of his giddy brain and he pulled away to ask, in between pants for breath, "Since we're on the subject of nicknames..."

"Yes?" Alex panted in reply.

"What made you pick 'Starman'?"

Alex smiled. Michael lived for that smile. 

The smile morphed into a shit-eating grin and Michael's cock twitched.

"Because I see the stars in your eyes and you'll always be my man."

It was Michael's turn to giggle and he tackle-hugged Alex into the mattress, which was a feat in itself since they were already plastered together, so it ended up being more like a dry hump.

"You are the corniest bastard that ever lived. For shame."

"Fuck off, you love that I'm a big ol' corndog."

Michael settled his head on Alex's chest with an ear over his heart to listen to his lifeblood pumping serenely in and out and sighed happily, melting into his arms.

"Ok, not really helpin' there, Corny McCornington, now I'm horny _and_ hungry."

"Well, I can help you out with one of those problems but you're on your own with the other one."

Michael felt Alex reach a hand under his pillow and his cock twitched again in anticipation.

Something thudded onto Alex's chest right in front of Michael's eyes, which grew wide with amusement. 

There was a half-eaten Snickers bar rising and falling with each breath about two inches from Michael's face. He snorted and pulled both of Alex's hands behind him to rest on top of his ass. "There. Problem solved."

He heard Alex chuckle. "Snickers ain't the only thing that satisfies."

Michael yawned as he drifted off for a catnap before he had to leave at dawn. "Damn skippy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Tranquilo_ \- literally it means 'tranquil' but you can use it to mean 'shhhh', which is how I used it here.


	7. S1E6: My Intentions Never Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nana's back! ^^
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters and pop culture references belong to their respective creators.

Michael was nervous as he rang the doorbell at the Manes household. Just nervous enough to have butterflies in his stomach but not so nervous that he felt he was going to lose his lunch, or his nerve. He just really wanted this weekend to be special. School would be over before they knew it and then, well... then they'd figure something out. Michael wasn't going to try to solve the riddle of Schrödinger's Cat just yet. Not while standing out on the porch listening to Alex's footsteps grow louder and feeling the butterflies duck for cover as he steeled his nerve. But soon. 

"Hello, Michael." The smooth timbre of Alex's voice and the knowing smile in his eyes relaxed the butterflies and made Michael feel quiet. Before Alex, music had been the only thing that could change his entropy. Now, there were two things, and one simply amplified the other.

"Alex." Michael smiled as he felt himself sink a little into his boots, and tipped his cowboy hat in salutation before doffing it to clasp to his chest as he followed Alex into the living room. The surprise gift in his back pocket was starting to burn a hole through his jeans. He shifted uncomfortably before setting his hat down in its usual place on the glass coffee table in front of the couch.

"Good evening, Nana, how's my favorite lady doing?" Michael smiled broadly as she looked up from her knitting. Alex had told him a month or so ago that she loved being called his favorite lady so it became a habit because he liked making her smile. 

"Oh, just fine and dandy, my boy," she replied warmly. "You're just in time. I've bet the Stubborn One here tonight's dish duty that his lauded contestant won't make it to the Tournament of Champions," she leveled a faux-glare at her grandson, who stuck his tongue out at her in rebuttal, "but as you can see, he's already set in his ways and has flatly refused to budge on his stance."

Michael laughed as he sat down next to Alex on the couch, shucking his boots and tucking his legs up underneath him to one side, basically using Alex as a lean-to. The Sergeant was working late again. He grinned at his secret boyfriend and tapped him on the nose with the index finger of his free hand coupled by an onomatopoeic BOP! sound effect. "This one? Stubborn? Why, surely you jest!" Michael exclaimed in mock surprise.

"I never jest. And don't call me Shirley!" Nana quipped, not missing a beat as she did a perfectly serious impression of Leslie Nielsen in _Airplane!_.

Alex tried to roll his eyes at their antics but the put-upon look was spoiled by the giggling and the squirming when Michael's hand found one of Alex's G-rated ticklish spots. He'd recently discovered some R-rated ticklish spots and the sounds that Alex made were definitely not fit for polite company. Just thinking about it made Michael's toes curl.

_Focus, Guerin._

With conscious effort, Michael returned all of his limbs to their full upright and locked positions, turning towards the television set to get a look at the scores. Since he only watched _Jeopardy!_ with Alex and Nana once a week on Fridays, he made it a point to get caught up on who was having a good week and who was a new contestant that day.

"We'll just see who's washing the dishes after it's time for Final Jeopardy," Alex crowed insolently in true stubborn style. He didn't have his arms crossed over his chest in a pout but Michael had a feeling they'd creep up there as the show progressed.

By the time Final Jeopardy rolled around, Alex did indeed have his arms crossed over his chest, a frown deeply etched into his forehead, and his lower lip was in full pout. Michael was vacillating between cracking up and jumping his bones. He cleared his throat and wisely chose to keep his mouth shut and his hands to himself. But it was a near thing.

_"Tonight's Final Jeopardy category is..."_ Alex Trebek teased out as he waited for the screen to his left to light up. _"Economics. Place your wagers everyone, and we'll be right back after these messages."_.

Alex threw up his hands in exasperation. "Well, there goes any hope I had of getting the right question." His right hand came back down on Michael's knee and stayed there; a warm, tingling sensation spreading outwards in waves through Michael's body like a pebble being thrown into a calm pond. His throat made a little humming noise of appreciation.

Nana tutted at him from her wingback chair as she started a new row on the baby blanket she was knitting this week. The color pattern was chunky rows in pastel colors, and the yarn was light and fluffy-looking. Michael got a little mesmerized whenever he watched anyone making handcrafts like knitting or crocheting. He was good with his hands, yes, but there were other ways to work magic and passing yarn back and forth and all around between two sticks or one hook and your fingers to end up with garments you could actually wear was just plain cool. 

_"Alright, we're back and it's time to see what our clever contestants have wagered in this interesting category."_ The screen changed over to the instantly familiar blue background with blocky capital letters in white: THIS PERSON SERVED AS CHAIRMAN OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE FOR NINETEEN YEARS THROUGH FOUR PRESIDENTS, A FEAT SURPASSED ONLY BY ONE OTHER PERSON, WHO SERVED UNDER FIVE U.S. PRESIDENTS.

Michael glared at the television set. He'd been spoiled by all the times when the Final Jeopardy answer was in a category he had studied or just generally knew about and he was able to impress the pants off of Alex, sometimes literally in his truck late at night when they'd go stargazing out at Fosters Homestead Ranch. But economics was part and parcel of the government. And the government was in charge of the military. And Michael tried his level best to steer clear of the military, the government, and the study of how the economy ran from year to year. Which was why that goddamn Murphy and his fucked-up sense of humor thought it'd be perfect for him to find his soulmate in the son of one of the country's most patriotic military men. Hardy har har. Well, Murphy could just take his Law and shove it where the sun don't shine. He wasn't going to let anyone or anything stand between him and Alex. No sir. He could take whatever Manes dished out and serve it up fried.

The hand on Michael's knee suddenly clenched as if it were spasming, the fingers doing a great impression of Thing from _The Addams Family_ when it was excited, expanding and contracting and slapping Michael's knee in excitement as it tried to tell him something. Michael was pulled out of his brooding thoughts to look between Alex's Thing impression and his man's face, which looked a little too much like his orgasm face for Michael's comfort with Nana sitting not five feet away from them. Not the heavy-lidded, sweat-sheened, blissed-out, glowing skin part; more like the giant O shape his mouth was currently forming. The sounds were off, too, and much more akin to monkey noises than sex noises. But obviously, Michael's libido didn't quibble over such small discrepancies. 

Michael had to pretend-cough in order to hide his smirk behind his hand at his secret boyfriend's excitement. "Yes, Alex? May I help you? You look like you're either having an epileptic seizure or you've come up with the correct question."

"I'm going with seizure," Nana snarked as she rummaged around for a new ball of yarn in her Mary-Poppins-esque carpet bag.

"I think it's Alan Greenspan!!!" Alex exclaimed in a voice that sounded giddy with anticipation and nerves. 

He was still slapping Michael's knee with his hand and Michael trapped it between his jeans and his free hand to keep Alex from hurting himself or bruising him. He rubbed comforting little circles with his thumb against Alex's skin to try and calm him down. Worked like a charm, but Michael had to concede that it was also due to the Jeopardy song coming to a close with that iconic decrescendo. 

Alex Trebek asked the contestants for their questions one by one and each time a contestant questioned incorrectly, Michael looked over at Alex and grinned. Alex had never beaten out the contestants at Final Jeopardy before. Maybe this would be his night to impress the pants off of Michael. Fuck, he hoped so.

_"No, I'm sorry, that is incorrect. Good guess, though. I think you were off by only one Chairman. The question is, 'Who is Alan Greenspan?' He just recently retired after serving an extra five years in his role as Chairman, as the typical term is fourteen years. The person who served nineteen years under five presidents was William McChesney Martin, Jr. from 1951 to 1970. Quite a long time. Ok, that's all we have for tonight's show, folks. Thanks, and we'll see you next week. So long."_

Alex threw his arms up in a victory stance and both Michael and Nana laughed. Alex took a bow, saying "thank you, thank you" in a magnanimous fashion. 

"How did you pull that rabbit out of your hat?" Michael genuinely wanted to know.

"Um, I paid attention in Econ? We just started learning about the Federal Reserve yesterday, which is the crazy part. Normally I wouldn't have been, cuz, eww, economics, but our teacher is actually really cool." Alex turned to address Nana. "He's actually our soccer coach, Nana, but apparently when there's a shortage of teachers or if the coaches have academic backgrounds, they can double up in their sport's offseason and teach a class. He's got a fun vibe about him and it makes learning about a dry topic more interesting."

"Well, it must be working because look how excited you were that you knew the answer after dreading your chances when the category was announced," Nana commented sweetly. 

"Blew me away," Michael added with a proud twinkle in his eye.

Alex laughed. "Yeah, I guess so. Oh, and he sings! He plays music when we're doing group projects and one day while we were checking on the stocks we'd selected to follow for the semester, he was going around the room singing along with the music."

"What was the song?"

Alex started bopping his head and shoulders to a beat he could hear in his head before he started singing, 'I'm so excited. I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose my mind and I think I like it.' I have no idea but I know it was popular way back in the 80's or whenever. I just know that part," he finished sheepishly, a cute blush creeping up his cheeks.

"Oh, you kids and your songs," Nana shook her head in amusement. "You know what else you won tonight? Dishes, my boy. Since your contestant didn't wager enough to bypass the wily newcomer whom I was backing," she added with a sly smile.

Alex was still bopping his head slightly to that tune which was obviously stuck in his head now. He grinned at her. "I don't even care because I was the only one who got the right question. Michael didn't even know it!" Alex turned his head sharply to the right a beat later. "Wait, you weren't faking it, were you?" His brow furrowed in surprised consternation. "Just to let me win?"

"I never fake anything with you, _corazón mío,_ " Michael replied with a fond smile. "And I would never miss out on an opportunity to show you up," he added with a smirk. He didn't know if Nana understood any Spanish, but then again, this was Nana, so probably; Michael was secretly thrilled to be able to call Alex by his nickname in front of someone else without the sky falling down.

Alex's head stopped mid-bop and his eyes grew round as he heard his nickname. He coughed suddenly and slapped a hand to his sternum a couple times before rasping out, "Oh... well, good. Sorry, musta swallowed wrong." Michael gave him a couple of light pats on the back to help him clear his throat.

"How shall we celebrate this momentous occasion?"

His face returning to its normal color, Alex appeared to have recovered his usual cool because he answered with his trademark deadpan humor, "By washing the dishes, duh. Where have you been?"

"Oh, here and there." Michael leaned away from Alex and the couch cushions to reach into his back pocket for the surprise gift. "Washing the dishes sounds like out-of-this-world fun. I can't wait. You can wash and I'll dry. It'll be epic. No hard water stain or greasy build-up will stand a chance against the likes of us. We'll be legendary." 

Alex just smiled fondly and shook his head slightly at Michael's straight-man routine. Oh, two peas in a pod they were.

He pulled the envelope out from behind his back and presented it to Alex as he leaned back against the cushions. "But that's just tonight. What say you about tomorrow night?"

Alex's eyebrows shot up and his eyes zeroed in on the envelope which he accepted with both hands. He opened the flap and pulled out two tickets to a Thirty Seconds to Mars concert. He looked back up at Michael and there was love in his eyes. He opened his mouth but no sound came out. They leaned towards each other like magnets being drawn inexorably closer to each other by the force of their own magnetism over a great distance.

The sound of the front door closing set off a warning bell in Michael's hindbrain. His frontal lobe didn't get the message in time, however.

Alex gave him a tender kiss on the cheek as he whispered "thank you" into Michael's skin.

A figure had just appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, just off to one edge of Michael's peripheral vision.

And then the sky fell down.

Time went non-linear for a spell.

Michael observed multiple realities interacting with each other, the probability of one pulling on the likelihood of the other. Huh. Maybe he'd have time to solve that riddle after all because suddenly he felt like he _was_ Schrödinger's Cat. 

Possibility #1: Alex kissed Michael on the cheek and then leaned over to the other side of the arm rest to flash the tickets in Nana's face way too fast for her to actually read what they were as he started talking a mile a minute about his favorite band that they were now going to go see in Las Cruces tomorrow, all the while maintaining a giddy grip on Michael's knee, which he was sure was going to be an interesting shade of black and blue in the morning, but worth every sore spot.

Possibility #2: Alex kissed Michael on the cheek and then was violently pulled back by the collar of his shirt as his father stormed into the room to protest his son's actions but before he could drag him over the back of the couch Michael reared up and shouted "Get away from him!" and Manes gave him a left hook to the chin that sent him flying backwards, the coffee table absorbing his impact and shattering into a million pieces, cutting his left hand to ribbons as he tried to break his fall, hearing Alex cry "NO!"

The Butterfly Effect was a strange and beautiful thing. Five seconds was a small measurement of time when compared to minutes, hours, or days. But five seconds was also a large enough measurement of time to completely change the course of a young man's life. 

If Michael had presented Alex with the envelope five seconds earlier; if Alex had kissed Michael five seconds earlier, Possibility #1 would have become reality, and Michael would be grinning like a fool right now as he basked in the glow of his secret boyfriend's glee.

Time folded back in on itself and Chaos Theory erupted into the Manes' living room, Possibility #2 became reality, and Michael found himself groaning quietly on the floor as he picked himself up, completely disinterested in his own injuries, his gaze focused entirely on where he'd last seen Manes. 

But what he saw when he limped to his feet took his breath away all over again.

Manes was being held in an arm lock behind the couch by... Nana? Alex's eighty-five-year-old grandmother was standing there looking like one of the Three Furies except not a hair out of place on her classically coiffed head. Michael was starting to think there was a good reason why her personnel files were classified.

Which meant that Alex was no longer under Manes' control; in his peripheral vision, Michael saw him crouch down behind him to retrieve his fallen cowboy hat and was currently shaking small shards of glass off of it, his gaze riveted on his task but also slowly making his way towards where Michael was dripping blood on the rug.

Manes was livid but hobbled by his current predicament. That didn't stop him from foaming at the mouth, unfortunately. "No son of mine is going to—" he started to growl out but was unceremoniously cut off when Nana did something behind his back which made him grimace in pain.

Nana interrupted him in a voice hard as a diamond, "No son of _mine_ is going to disparage my grandsons—"

"He's not really your gr—agh!"

"Do not interrupt your elders, Jessup, it's impolite."

Alex had reached Michael's side and twined his fingers in Michael's good hand. That warm, comforting touch jumpstarted Michael's brain and he realized he should be holding his injured hand above his heart to try and staunch the bleeding until he could get to some acetone and gauze. Michael raised his left hand slowly to rest against his ribs and squeezed Alex's hand in acknowledgement with his right hand but otherwise both of them stood stock still, too afraid to make any sudden moves. 

"As I was saying, no son of mine is going to disparage my grandsons for whom they choose to love. I didn't fight off the Nazis and more just to see my own flesh and blood let the same kind of fearmongering ruin his life and the chance for his son and his boyfriend to make their own life together." At the word 'boyfriend', Manes' nostrils flared and his face contorted in pain but as far as Michael could tell, Nana hadn't moved. "You're a smart man, I know I raised you to be a good person, I'm proud of what you've accomplished in your career, you've made your country proud, and I love you for it. But you've always had a problem with projecting your fears onto other people so that you could try to control those fears. But you end up just trying to control those people instead. This isn't healthy and you need to find a better way to fight those fears so that you don't lose the remaining relationships that mean the most to you."

Nana could just see over Manes' shoulder, what with the way he was bent over slightly from his arm being twisted behind him, and she looked over at the two boys huddled together on top of the remains of the coffee table for a long moment before addressing Alex. "Alex, honey, be a dear and get Michael to the hospital before he bleeds out on the rug there."

Alex nodded mutely but didn't move. Michael turned to see what was keeping him from moving but his eyes didn't track any farther than Manes' face, which was still focused on his son, although the look in his eyes had shifted, maybe even softened just the tiniest bit. There was a swirl of emotions going on in there, like maybe he was seeing his son for the first time, but Michael wasn't terribly interested in finding out just then. He released Alex's hand, which in and of itself should have elicited a response but didn't. Maybe Alex was in shock. He took the cowboy hat he'd been clutching to his chest and placed it on his not-so-secret-now boyfriend's head and then re-twined their fingers together, gently tugging to get him moving.

_"Vámonos ya, corazón,"_ Michael cooed softly. Names have power. That did the trick and Alex snapped out of it and looked over at Michael, then up towards the ceiling as he felt the weight of Michael's prized possession on his head. 

Michael smiled and tilted his head towards the front door. "You heard Nana. You can drive." Michael didn't want to tempt fate by asking Alex to fish his keys out of his front pocket for him with Manes still standing there. He definitely did not have a death wish. He'd just wait until they were outside to ask him to drive them out to Fosters Homestead Ranch instead; he would convince him to play Doctor and bandage his hand with the gauze and acetone he kept disguised in a distilled water bottle in his first aid kit. He didn't intend to let go of Alex's hand any sooner than absolutely necessary.

Michael looked back at Nana, bowed his head in gratitude and admiration, and led the love of his life out to his truck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vámonos ya, corazón - C'mon, let's go, heart of mine
> 
> Carina said that Alex was a big Panic! At the Disco fan in high school but I know nothing about that band so I decided that in my headcanon, Alex would be a diehard fan of _my_ favorite band instead, Thirty Seconds to Mars, who were going through their own Emo period when Alex was in highschool. The title for this chapter comes from their song, _Was it a Dream?_. I just couldn't resist, Stormy, it was too perfect ♥ 
> 
> I wanted to write about their flail!happy preparations for the concert but the boyfriend reveal part kind of took up all my time and mental energy this week, so I will try to incorporate it later. I didn't want the Sergeant to be as monstrous as Manes is on the show, plus Michael and Alex have Nana in their corner here, and I wanted them to have a strong female role model to look up to ♥


	8. S1E7: Killing Me Softly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: All pop culture references and characters belong to their respective creators.

Michael Guerin was a hot mess. 

He knew this because Maria DeLuca had just declared it so with a put-upon sigh as he bellied up to the bar at the Wild Pony. Well, the joke was on her because he had zero fucks left to give. 

None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. 

Not least of all because of the stunt she'd just pulled at the door with her shiny new bouncer. She thought she was so funny just because it was the weekend and she could get away with it. Michael had ambled up to the door of his sad-but-true home away from home with his usual swagger only to be rebuffed by the mountain of a man guarding it from the usual crazies; beefy arms crossed over his barrel chest. An immovable object.

Hello immovable object. Meet unstoppable force. 

Or at least, he would be if he were allowed to use his powers in public where other people could actually see the magic show instead of just the after-effects. Fucking humans and their fucking hypocrisies. _Harry Potter and the Blah Blah Fucking Blah_ could earn a gazillion dollars at the box office no problem, but if one person saw a man riding a broomstick down Main Street for real, they'd shit their pants and run screaming in the opposite direction and there'd be Suits down there so fast it'd make your head spin. It made Michael's head spin and he wasn't even moving. 

Right?

He checked his feet.

Nopes. Still stuck to the pavement outside the damned bar because André the Giant here wouldn't let him in. 

"Fezzik would let me in. He was a nice giant," Michael proclaimed. "He could even rhyme. Can you rhyme?"

The bouncer didn't even have the decency to look bored, annoyed, or intimidated. He looked amused. 

What the fuck kind of reaction was that?

"What the fuck kind of reaction is that?" 

Michael's brain-to-mouth filter was just a tad bit worn out at this point. He took a step forward. The amused mountain didn't budge.

Whatev. He'd started the third evening since Iz'd had herself committed to Arkham Asylum at home with whatever liquor he had left in the caravan after raiding Max's hacienda the day before while he was at work plus his never-ending supply of acetone for occasions such as this. The invention of the internet and e-commerce bulk discount stores had been the best thing to happen to him since Al— since he'd struck out on his own after high school. And for the third night running, the alcohol had run out way too quickly – Max needed to do a better job stocking up on the booze – so he'd made the rather harrowing trip into town. The steering on his truck must be coming loose or something. He'd see to that later though because right now he had a giant to best in his quest to drink the bar dry.

"Hah! See, now that rhymes. Best. Quest." He smirked, pointing at his chest with his bad thumb as he addressed the bouncer's forearms because they were at eye level and required less movement. "Genius."

The forearms were strangely unimpressed. 

There came a chuckling sound from up above the forearms, however, and Michael did his best to look up without losing his balance. The bouncer leaned forward a little bit and – sniffed? – and Michael most definitely did _not_ almost fall over backwards.

"Mmhmm. I thought so."

Michael checked his feet again. His cowboy boots were still pointing down. Forward. Good.

"You thought so?" he parroted back.

The bouncer just smiled enigmatically as he gave Michael the once-over. "Sex in a truck. Smells like a river. Never introduce him to your mama." He ticked off each point as if he were counting on his fingers.

"Um, is this a riddle? Because that was Vizzini's test." All he wanted was a drink. He'd take one laced with iocane powder at this point. He wasn't picky. "You're not supposed to ask me a riddle." Why was this Questing so hard? Westley had made it look so easy. Stupid Westley.

Fezzik picked up the clipboard that was partial to all bouncers and made some sort of mark on it with the attached pen. Michael wondered if there was going to be a written portion to this Quest and shrugged. He could take tests in his sleep.

"Ms. DeLuca has a select list of what kinds of crazy she allows in her bar. I was just making sure you were on the list," and with that he stepped aside and bid Michael enter.

"Oh, she does, does she? Flattered, I'm sure." Michael deadpanned as he slunk inside. "I knew you'd let me in. Thanks, Fezzik," he threw over his shoulder before the door hit him in the ass.

~*~

So here he was at the bar, nursing a rum and acetone, eyes lazily roaming around the bar, entropy getting quieter by the sip.

"He's not here, Guerin."

Michael felt his face grow hot. So much for entropy-quieting. "Not now, Count Rugen. I'm busy," he muttered as he picked at a chip in the lip of his tumbler. 

"Yeah, I can see that."

Michael frowned into his rum, aiming for nonchalance. "Who said I was looking for A—" his throat seized up. He cleared it and tried again. "—anyone?"

"I tend bar for a living. Plus, I have eyes."

"But you said 'he'." Michael refocused his frown towards the proprietress of the Wild Pony. 

"Look around you, Guerin. Bar's full of beautiful women and you haven't noticed a single one of them. Third night in a row. The rest are couples and old truckers." Maria continued shining glasses and wiping down the bar, talking to him like they were buddies or something. It was... nice. Weird, but nice. He sighed. Guess letting someone cry on your shoulder when you're the last person with whom they would have wanted to be vulnerable goes a long way towards building... something. Friends? Was he no longer her least-favorite patron? He wasn't sure what to do with that information.

"You always were a crafty one, Rugen, I'll give you that." Michael threw back the last of his rum and acetone and held out a crisp new bill. "I'll also give you this for more of that," he pointed the greenback at the bottle of rum sitting behind her on the mirrored surface.

The compulsive cleaning stuttered to a halt. "Money up front again? Now you're really starting to worry me, Guerin." 

Maria was looking at it like she actually might not accept it. Michael growled in frustration. Partly at her teasing him. Partly at the reputation he'd built for himself. All he wanted was to think about nothing for a little while. Three nights ago, his perception of Maria DeLuca had changed. Two nights ago, he had started paying for his drinks. Her reticence still stung, however. 

She startled just the tiniest bit and snatched the bill out of his hand before he could throw it at her.

"Your friendly-bartender skills kinda suck."

Maria gave him a dirty look but poured his drink anyway. "Your face sucks."

Michael gave her a feral grin. His cheek muscles hurt from disuse. "I've had no complaints. Quite the opposite in fact."

Maria made a disgusted sound, rolled her eyes at him and made a shooing motion with her hands and dishrag. "Like I said. You're a hot mess. Go play pool or something, you scoundrel."

Michael downed his glass and held it out for a refill, relishing the burn in his throat. "Don't mind if I do." Yeah, this whole 'friends' thing didn't sound half-bad. He could sure use one.

~*~

Twenty minutes later and Michael had no more warm, squishy feelings left for Maria. He also had no more rum. Blast.

"Why's all the rum gone?" He snickered into the pool cue he was leaning on like a cru— like a pole. The next song started up and the snicker turned into a groan.

He was starting to regret his decision to scale the Cliffs of Insanity to raid Maria's supply of alcohol. Maybe he should have just stayed at home drinking acetone until it burned his insides out. He'd read that it could do that if you drank too much of it. Maybe tonight he'd find out. He checked the bottle stashed in his black jean jacket. Half full. Awesome. 

Not so awesome was that he'd forgotten this was Saturday. Maria hosted Karaoke on Saturday nights because she was a cruel and unusual mistress of the night. He hoped she didn't have six fingers on one hand, though, cuz that would just creep him out. He needed a drink but was out of cash and still trying to stick to his newfound principles. Acetone it was. It was starting to sting as it went down but he ignored it. There were worse things.

Ten minutes ago, the torture had started. 

_Empty orchestra_. That's what karaoke means in Japanese. Michael was valiantly trying to play through the pain of listening to people butcher the greatest hits of the 80's and 90's, judging from the age of the crowd tonight. Humans were so strange. For some unfathomable reason, singing horribly in front of a bunch of strangers at various stages of inebriation really brought out the nostalgia in people for the music of their formative years and encouraged them to do _more_ of it.

He aimed his pool cue at the solid blue ball and called out his shot to the green felted table, as it was the only one listening to him. SMACK went the ball as it careened off the striped blue and several other billiard balls and right into the far corner pocket.

Hmpf. Blue balls. That about summed it up right there, didn't it? He took a long pull on his acetone.

On the other hand, though, Michael had focused on the sonic torture as a means of not focusing on any of the tumultuous thoughts clanging around in that chaotic mind of his and it had actually been working.

Until it wasn't.

He had his back to the little make-shift stage when a new person stepped up to the mic at the other end of the bar and a song started playing that nearly made Michael scratch the next billiard ball off the felt and onto the floor. He had to grip the pool table to keep himself upright. His knees had buckled as the opening bars played and the voice that he still heard in his dreams at night began singing softly, soulfully, beautifully into the microphone.

_Strumming my pain with his fingers_  
_Singing my life with his words_  
_Killing me softly with his song_  
_Killing me softly with his song_  
_Telling my whole life with his words  
_ _Killing me softly with his song_

It had been ten long years since he had last heard that voice sing but it hadn't lost its touch. Oh no. If anything, it sounded even better. He had a deeper sound now, and, Michael realized as he bit his lip so hard he could taste copper, a melancholy tone that hadn't been there before. He held onto the table with one hand as he threw back another shot of acetone with the other to get rid of the taste of blood in his mouth.

_I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style_  
_And so I came to see him, to listen for a while_  
_And there he was, this young boy, a stranger to my eyes_

Michael managed to turn around and hitch himself up onto the wide billiard frame because he wasn't going to make it through this song standing up. He didn't care who saw him sitting there hugging a pool cue looking like a lovesick fool. Not that anyone was looking into the shadowy back corner of the bar anyway. Not with Alex up on stage, eyes closed, feeling the music. Pouring his heart and soul into the song that Michael had first heard him sing that afternoon many moons ago when they had been getting ready to go to the only concert they ever got to attend together.

_Strumming my pain with his fingers_  
_Singing my life with his words_  
_Killing me softly with his song_  
_Killing me softly with his song_  
_Telling my whole life with his words_  
_Killing me softly with his song_

They'd been fooling around on the bed and being as loud as they wanted to be about it, mindful of Michael's bandaged hand. Manes had up and disappeared at daybreak that Saturday morning with his fishing gear which Alex had said meant he'd be out with his Air Force cronies until dark. When this song came on the radio, Alex had abandoned the wet trail of kisses he'd been leaving down the length of Michael's chest to jump up and start singing with verve into an imaginary mic as he towered over his boyfriend on the bed, whose curls were splayed out in all directions, pupils blown, staring transfixed as he fought to catch his breath at the sight above him. Michael had quickly discovered that this was one of Alex's favorite songs. He may dress like a goth punk, but his musical tastes were varied and eclectic. 

_I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd_  
_I felt he'd found my letters and read each one out loud_  
_I prayed that he would finish, but he just kept right on_

That was the day Michael had told Alex he loved him in so many words. There on the bed amidst the spiky hair, eyeliner, black nail polish, handcuff necklace, and nose ring. There on the bed singing his heart out as if he didn't have a care in the world, pulling Michael to his feet so they could dance and giggle on the mattress. That was the day that Alex had truly become Michael's home by saying he loved him, too. Michael smiled at the memory even as it made his eyes sting.

_Strumming my pain with his fingers_  
_Singing my life with his words_  
_Killing me softly with his song_  
_Killing me softly with his song_  
_Telling my whole life with his words_  
_Killing me softly_

"Uh, Michael?"

Michael blinked several times to clear his eyes, cleared his throat, and took another swig of acetone, wincing as it passed over the open wound where he'd bitten his lip. Then he leaned towards the interloper without taking his eyes off the stage. "Shh, Buttercup's singing."

There was a quiet whooshing sound coming from behind him that sounded vaguely familiar but Michael was too distracted to take conscious notice.

_Strumming my pain with his fingers_  
_Singing my life with his words_

"Buttercup?" 

Michael could see Max looking over at the stage and back at him out of the corner of his eye. The cowboy checked his pockets. Nopes, still fresh out of fucks to give. If Max could keep secret the fact that he'd known about Alex and him for TEN FUCKING YEARS then he could stand to pretend he didn't know about them for another thirty seconds. 

_Killing me softly with his song_  
_Killing me softly with his song_

"Who does that make you, Dread Pirate Roberts?"

_Telling my whole life with his words_  
_Killing me softly, with his words_

Michael froze in the middle of formulating a snarky response for Miracle Max because in that moment Alex finished singing his favorite song, opened his eyes, and looked straight at Michael over the crowd of bar patrons clapping and hollering.

The whooshing sound was getting louder.

Scientifically speaking, Michael's brain knew that Alex couldn't actually see Michael way in the back due to the bright lights shining directly into Alex's retinas, essentially rendering Michael invisible beyond that circle of light.

Emotionally speaking, Michael's heart knew that Alex could see straight through the window of Michael's eyes into his soul. The look on Alex's face was one of modest appreciation as he thanked the crowd, but his eyes were asking for... clemency. If only Alex could see the look in his own eyes. _As you wish_.

Max was doing his tennis match spectator impression again but Michael could tell his gaze was looking behind him instead of at him this time.

In a flash the moment was gone and Alex took a small bow before leaving the stage and going back to sit down at a table with... Kyle Valenti?

"What's that bastard Humperdinck doing here?"

"Michael!" Max quietly gritted out between his teeth and jerked his head to the right, towards the billiards. 

Michael let out an exasperated huff and turned to snap, "Wha—oh shit!"

Sixteen billiard balls skittered to a halt on the invisible track around which they'd been racing several inches over the rim of the pool table. Michael had to concentrate really hard through the acetone haze for several moments to get the phenolic resin balls to stop resisting gravity and fall back to the felt with a cascade of muted THUDS.

He heard Max let out an exasperated sigh and suddenly he was being manhandled off the pool table and dragged in the general direction of the door.

Michael lost track of where Alex's table was. And the floor. And the ceiling. And decided to hold onto Max's arm with both hands to see if he could find them again.

"Next time you decide to pine over your long-lost boyfriend can you please do it at home or my place?" Max huffed over his shoulder as Michael stumbled along behind him. On their way past the bar, Michael saluted a bemused-looking Maria. 

"Count Rugen. A pleasure as always."

She shook her head at him but he saw her smile before he was unceremoniously yanked through the front door. 

"Have fun storming the castle!" Michael called over to Fezzik, who smiled and waved back as he took in the next kind of crazy waiting in line to go inside.

"Hey, that's my line." Max grumbled as he threw Michael into the passenger seat of his Jeep. 

"You were all out of spirits. I was all out of spirit. Maria has all the spirits. And she's friends with a spirit. You wouldn't want me to be dispirited, now would you?" Michael couldn't remember if the Jeep had seatbelts. Things were starting to get blurry anyway so instead of looking for some he decided to just hug the roll bar.

His eyes closed of their own accord and a few moments later he heard and felt the Jeep rumble to life. He'd have to trudge back here tomorrow to get his baby but he didn't mind. The walk would do him good. 

"Hey, open your eyes. No puking in the Jeep."

Michael sighed but complied and put on his best Imperious Max voice.

"Why you gotta make such a spectacle of yourself, _Michael?_ "

Silence from the peanut gallery. Michael tried again.

"Why do I always gotta be Miracle Max just because we have the same name, _Michael?_ "

A snicker carried over from the driver's seat.

They were approaching the fork in the road where the path to the left led to the Junkyard and the path to the right led to the outskirts of town where Max lived.

"Why can't I be someone more awesome like Inigo Montoya, _Michael?_ "

"Hell, yeah!"

The two estranged best friends looked over at each other and nodded in unison. 

3...2...1...

"Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You kill my father. Prepare to die!" they recited together, complete with Castilian accent and Serious Faces.

In the midst of their laughter, Max veered to the right at the last second and Michael almost lost his grip on the roll bar as the tires screeched and the Jeep jerked itself onto its new course.

"What the fuck, Max? I don't think you can scare the hangover out of me. Make me piss my pants, maybe, but not that." Michael was still laughing though.

"We need to watch that movie again. I know I still have it."

"Yeah okay, but I get to be Westley this time."

"You were Westley last time." 

"Was not. I was Vizzini cuz Izzy couldn't remember his big speech."

Max smirked. "Oh yeah. She always calls dibs on Buttercup anyway."

"Well, duh."

"Maybe you could uh, invite Alex over and let him fight Iz for it next time?" Max cleared his throat and busied himself with pulling the Jeep into the driveway of his hacienda. "When she comes home."

Michael blushed and busied himself with making sure his feet were still under him as he got down from the Jeep. "Yeah?"

Max came around the back to sling a brotherly arm under Michael's shoulders to steady him as they walked towards the house. "Yeah."

Michael smiled. His cheek muscles didn't hurt as much this time. "Do you think she'd settle for being Valerie if Alex called dibs on Buttercup first?"

Max threw his head back and let loose a laugh that sounded like his own cheek muscles were a little creaky from disuse. He held the door open for Michael and responded with a pretty good impression of the iconic phrase spoken by the beloved Sicilian from _The Princess Bride_.

"That's inconceivable!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title and lyrics come from _Killing Me Softly With His Song_ by Fugees.
> 
> _The Princess Bride_ is made of win ♥ and Alex will always be Michael's Buttercup.


	9. S1E8: Lux et Veritas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week's chapter is a drabble because I didn't have time to write a longer one, so it's just a little thought bubble Michael has about beacons and his plans for the future.
> 
> Disclaimer: All pop culture and historical references belong to their respective creators. Wikipedia is my co-pilot.

~*~

Beacon.

A guiding light, pulsating in the night, carrying hope to those lost in the dark. 

Lighthouse.

A beacon shining down upon weary seafarers, leading them to safe harbor, home, and loved ones.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt, also known as Pharos, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Commissioned by Ptolemy I Soter in the third century BCE after the death of Alexander the Great, the lighthouse was constructed over the course of twelve years and became the blueprint for lighthouses the world over for the next two thousand years. The beacon of Pharos guided souls home for over fourteen hundred years before crumbling into the Mediterranean Sea as ruins in the throes of periodic earthquakes. One can go diving there now to see the ruins, which are in the process of being added to UNESCO's World Heritage List of submerged cultural sites.

Michael was going to visit the Pharos of Alexandria someday. With Alex. The two of them were going to see the world. Together. Just like they could have done, should have done, over the last ten years.

Michael Guerin was a stubborn sonofabitch. If he could wait ten years to see Alex again, he could wait a little while longer to have him back in his arms again, where he belonged. It was going to happen; Michael would make damn sure it happened.

Alex was his beacon, his shining light in dark places, guiding him home.

He'd been serious when he told Liz he was tired of all the secrets and lies. He was no longer going to live under the guise of a "normal human being," whatever the fuck that was supposed to be, hiding in plain sight from the people he loved. Well, just one person, really. Everyone else he cared about, or in Kyle Valenti's case, barely tolerated, already knew about his alien origins. 

Except the most important person in his world. That ended here and now... just as soon as he figured out how he was going to tell the love of his life that he was a fucking alien from outer space. 

Right. Piece of cake.

Ok, one miracle at a time.

Step One, save Isobel. Step Two, show Alex the real Michael Guerin and how much he always has and always will love him. Step Three, make beautiful music together, see the world. 

Yeps. Easy as pie.

~*~


	10. S1E9: From the Moment When

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ♥ Fluffy chapter is fluffy ♥
> 
> Disclaimer: All pop-culture and character references belong to their respective creators.

Gravity.

An invisible force that pulls objects towards each other. 

The closer one object is to another, the stronger its gravitational pull, until the two objects are linked together in a cosmic dance, forever circling, forever sliding closer and closer. Time slows down here on the event horizon. Perfect for these two celestial beings as they orbit one another in a universe of their own making.

Michael Guerin was no stranger to the pull of gravity. He'd been feeling its particular and rather weighty pull for more than ten years but only enough to keep him rooted in Roswell. Waiting. He had other reasons to stay, of course, but they didn't exert the same amount of pull. Their gravitational waves were of a different sort.

Until a few months ago when his whole world was turned upside down and the wait was finally over. He could suddenly walk on air—without using his telekinesis—because the gravity of his being was co-mingling once again with the heavier gravity of the one other being who made him want to stay on this verboten planet. You couldn't have pried him away with a crowbar, as the saying goes.

During a lifetime of learning when to fight for what you want and to hide from what hunts you, Michael had become excellent at laying in wait, both for his enemies and his desires. He'd become an excellent strategist and wore a shrewd poker face. He knew what he was about and he wasn't afraid to let people think of him what they will.

And strangely enough, good things really do come to those who wait. 

Michael was quietly strumming an aimless lullaby on the guitar he'd received ten long years ago from the good thing in his life; thinking about gravity and love and entropy while he gazed down upon the sleeping form of one Alex Manes at the opposite end of the cot in the bunker under the Airstream. He mostly had to stick to playing open chords because he couldn't quite get his left hand to wrap all the way around the neck of the guitar to press down on the frets he'd need for more complex tunes, but he didn't mind too much. Open chords were typically used for happy, melodic songs, and Michael's brain was sappier than a maple tree right now, so that was all well and good.

He figured with some practice and stretching exercises, he could regain some of the dexterity he used to have. Then they could jam out like they used to. The thought made Michael smile at his sleeping beauty, and a song came to mind. He strummed the intro bars, and then began to sing softly into the golden-hued quiet.

"When I, I saw your face, it was like a space in my heart was filled," Michael cleared his throat as his atrophied singing muscles were called back into service. Forming the chords was slow-going, so it was fitting he'd picked a slow song. "It's like I knew, from the very start, that you were every other part of me." He closed his eyes in concentration as the long-forgotten yet warmly familiar swirl of emotions gathered him up in their embrace; his entropy changing, his shoulders relaxing, his toes burrowing deeper under Alex's hamstrings.

"It's like I have loved you since, from the moment when, since time began, you fill my heart."

Michael opened his eyes as the cot shifted slightly. Sleeping Beauty was awake and watching him with big round eyes, face half-hidden behind the pillow he'd been hugging when he fell asleep an hour or so ago on his stomach. They'd been talking, for hours and hours. About everything and nothing. Things ridiculously uncanny. Things uncannily ridiculous. Michael's smile grew a bit watery. There'd already been plenty of crying, too. He had a sneaking suspicion that once the waterworks started, it was hard to turn them off. No wonder women were so touchy during their periods. He wasn't sure he could hack it as a woman. Tonight had been hard enough.

Michael suddenly registered the arched eyebrow visible above the pillow and realized that the reverberations from the last chord had floated away and his voice had stopped carrying the tune. He smiled sheepishly and looked down to re-center himself, strumming the chorus again to remember where he was in the song. That was something else that had happened several times over the last six hours. They'd both gotten lost in each other's eyes a few times. 

"Oh, oh love of mine, why did it take so long to find your touch?" Michael felt a hand slide onto his calf, caressing the skin with a feather light touch. "Hope was never gone, even though it took so long to find you, yeah," he looked back up into those chocolate brown eyes smiling with mirth. "Because I have loved you since, from the moment when, since time began, you fill my heart."

Michael looked back down at the guitar, partly to concentrate on the instrumental build-up to the musical climax of the song, partly to keep from completely losing it at the watery look in Alex's own eyes.

Then he raised his head to the ceiling and sang the wordless declaration with a quiet verve, eyes squeezed closed. Michael lowered his head to sing the final verse but Alex beat him to it, the sound of his soft, sleep-raspy voice making Michael's eyes go wide with glee.

"And I have loved you since, from the moment when, since time began, you fill my heart." Michael played the remaining chords as Alex sang the last line over again. "And I have loved you since," Alex sat up on the cot, "from the moment when," he shifted onto his knees, "since time began," and leaned forward, over the guitar upon which Michael was finding it harder and harder to concentrate, "you fill my heart," and kissed Michael on the lips.

Gravity in action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title and lyrics belong to _You Fill My Heart_ by Jason Walker.


	11. S1E10: On A Clear Day You Can See Forever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Levi_Rivaille933012 (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵), who wished there was more to read.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters and pop-culture references belong to their respective creators.

"What's under the tarp?"

Michael followed the invisible line Alex's arm made as it hung off the edge of the cot, pointing at the table across the bunker. His heart sank; muscles involuntarily squeezing Alex closer to his chest where he'd been nestled since Michael had finished playing the guitar. They'd spent the last little while just quietly being together after all the talking; sometimes kissing, sometimes nuzzling, sometimes just listening to each other's heartbeats. The cot wasn't wide enough for traditional spooning on their sides, so Alex had snuggled his way onto Michael's chest, occasionally asking for reassurance that he wasn't too heavy, and getting the same response back each time: you're light as a feather; stay.

"Michael? What's wrong?"

Michael swallowed past the lump in his throat. That was another facet to their refashioned relationship. Alex was making the effort to let Michael in by using his first name more often. He tried not to call attention to it, but it still made his breath catch in his throat sometimes because his name on Alex's lips sounded almost... reverent. And now, worried.

Michael was torn. "Uh," was all he managed before his throat closed up on him and he had to clear it.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, revealing all his secrets to Alex in one fell swoop. He'd figured it would be like ripping off a band-aid. A big cosmic one. Alex had wanted to know who and what he was. Michael's biggest and longest-held pipe dream. The theme of countless fantasies he'd had over the years. And now that his dream was becoming a reality, he realized that there was one fatal flaw in his quest to bare his soul to the man he trusted not only with his alien existence, but with his heart.

 _The truth will set you free_ , they say. But what happens when the visible star in the binary system you've been orbiting all this time, invisible to the universe around you, wants to see the work you've been doing to break free of its orbit because you never thought the day would come when you'd see each other face to face again? What happens to your entropy then?

Michael tried to speak around the frog in his throat. "It's something I've, uh, been working on for—" he paused to take a deep breath and exhaled slowly, careful not to jostle Alex's head resting on top of his heart, which was probably beating irregularly now, "—for a long time, but I'm not sure you want to see it."

"What do you mean?"

Michael rubbed his cheek against the crown of Alex's head, trying to absorb as much of Alex's earthy scent into his memory as possible. He knew it was inevitable; he'd heard the familiar tone of insatiable curiosity in Alex's voice, but he just wanted a few more seconds of blissful ignorance with his man.

3...2...1... Michael kissed the top of his head for luck and took the proverbial leap of faith.

"Nevermind. C'mon, I'll show you," he tried to hide the resignation in his voice, his demeanor, but he doubted he was doing a very good job of it if the concerned look on Alex's face was anything to go by when they both sat up on the cot.

"Are you sure? I don't want to intru—"

"No, but it's alright. I meant it when I said no more secrets, so, up you get."

Michael handed Alex his prosthetic and gave him a hand up from the low-lying cot once it was attached. He twined their fingers together as they walked over to the tarp-covered table. With his other hand he picked up the sheet and flung it up and away with a flourish, revealing a light table illuminating the sum total of the last ten years of his life's work.

"I've never shown this to anyone before."

"Wh—what is it?"

"I think it's a console. At least, it's shaped like one, and it has all these symbols on it in what look like strategic places. And they repeat in similar ways to the way that our alphabet does when we write out words. Plus," Michael tilted his head towards Alex as he lowered his voice conspiratorially and pointed at one of the smaller pieces scattered around the light table. "the pieces want to be together."

Alex turned to look at him a bit incredulously, his perfect eyebrows arched in query. "They _want_ to be?"

Michael let go of Alex's hand to pick up a loose piece with his good hand. He stood closer to the table, the soft iridescent light of the alien glass reflecting in his eyes, his gaze roaming over the smooth curves. "The molecules knit together on contact when they fit, forming a bond with the bigger piece and leaving no seam," Michael glanced to his side as Alex stepped closer, "like there'd never been a break in the first place."

Alex looked like he wasn't sure _what_ he was looking at. Michael couldn't blame him. Sometimes he wasn't sure he knew what he was looking at either. But he was sure that it was some kind of communication or navigation device. He turned back to the table, running a hand over the smooth surface, watching the symbols glow momentarily under his touch as his fingers traced some of the repeating patterns. His voice took on a slightly distant tone, a little more excited now that he was actually talking about this with Alex. "So yeah, I think it's a console. And once I find all the other pieces, I can let them fuse together and see what happens." Yeah, this wasn't so bad. "Then if I can find a vehicle to attach it to, I can—"

"You're going to leave... the _planet,_ " Alex's voice broke through his excited chatter but it sounded far away. Michael looked up from the glowing symbol under his fingertip at the space he thought Alex was still occupying only to find it empty. He looked further down the table to find him staring intensely at the symbols on one of the larger separate pieces which apparently hadn't come into contact with its mate yet because it hadn't wanted to fuse with any of the extant pieces on the table. He could have sworn he heard Alex muttering to himself under his breath, "Have a safe ride home, Starman."

His eyes widened at the use of Alex's nickname for him. And that particular phrase sounded familiar, like he'd heard it somewhere before, but couldn't put his finger on where, or when. Some of his memories were more painful than others to remember so sometimes he could recall them; sometimes, like right now, his mind blocked them out. 

Michael didn't understand the look on Alex's face, and his body language was all wrong. Closed off. Pupils dilated, face looking a little flushed in the fan-cooled environs of the bunker, head absently shaking like he was having an internal argument with himself. Then he started slowly backing away from the table, hands fidgeting at his sides.

Michael suddenly recognized what was going on. 

Oh no. No no no. 

Alex's amygdala had triggered a neural response in his hypothalamus, which caused a whole host of other biochemical reactions to cascade down his central nervous system.

He was going into fight or flight mode in response to stress.

Fuck, what had he said?!

"Alex?"

"You know what, I'm just gonna uh, take some time to digest all of this, it's been a long day, and uh, I have no idea what time it even is, and I'm pretty sure we've missed several meals by now so I must be starving, and so um, I'm just gonna, yeah, a-a-and there's also that whole matter of the snow storm that's blowing in and stuff, so...."

Michael watched in horror as Alex's tunnel vision was directed at the table while he rambled out his excuses, still backing slowly towards the ladder leading up to the porthole, arms outstretched to help with his reduced peripheral vision.

NO. 

He couldn't take this. He couldn't watch Alex walk away from him even one more time. They could get through this together. He knew they could. They'd been through so much already and they'd just started over and— _"Have a safe ride home, Starman."_ — The night Alex walked out of his life for the first, and sadly, not the last time. That was it! It was déjà vu all over again. Michael had to break the cycle, once and for all.

" _¡Espérate, corazón mío!_ "

Alex froze halfway up the second rung of the ladder, his injured leg hovering over the floor of the bunker.

" _Quédate conmigo,_ " Michael pleaded. " _Porfis?_ "

Alex looked over his shoulder. The soft light of the overhead lamps glinted off the tears just visible in the corners of his beautiful brown eyes.

Michael had re-covered the table with the tarp quick as a whip with his telekinesis before Alex turned around, but was too afraid to make any sudden moves lest he spook him. He wouldn't stop him if he really did want to leave, but Michael knew it in his bones that they could work through this final doozy of a secret, together.

Alex had called him Starman again, after all these years. So, what could he do except call out to his heart using the nickname he'd given him one night in the bed of his truck while they stargazed out at Foster's Homestead Ranch?

Alex slowly stepped back down and turned around to face Michael. The alien cowboy exhaled loudly in relief and motioned with his head back towards the cot with hopeful eyes.

His resilient human shuffled back over to the cot and kind of just collapsed onto the concave cloth suspended between the wooden supports. 

Michael tried not to let his emotions overwhelm him, but it was a near thing. He was lost in thought and watching his feet as he walked, trying to figure out what the hell he was going to say to Alex. That is, until he looked up as he approached the camp-bed and noticed Alex leaning comically far over the edge of the cot, straining to look at something behind Michael, his eyes wide with awe, mouth slightly agape. 

Only then did Michael register the soft whirring sound that always seemed to accompany the objects his telekinesis transported. You'd think he would recognize that sound faster, but he never seemed to notice it until it was almost too late. He did, in fact, panic for a few seconds when he turned around and came face to face with a life-sized tornado of various non-perishables and bottles of water, almost like his telekinesis was trying to be helpful since Alex had mentioned being hungry. But then his supposedly genius brain reminded him that he didn't have to hide this from Alex anymore.

Hence the magic show. Apparently his telekinesis had been listening to their conversation and pulled items off shelves into a mini tornado of foodstuffs that had followed Michael across the room back towards the cot.

He reached his hands out and a bag of tortilla chips, which he recognized as being one of the things he'd klepto'd from Max's house the night they'd watched _The Princess Bride_ , and two bottles of water spun forward and past his hands to land on the cot in front of a smiling Alex. Michael had this random urge to bow his head in thanks at the tornado since he was pretty sure it was acting of its own free will, so he did and it spun back towards the shelves of his Spartan food cupboard, redepositing items as it went. 

Right. Well, that was new. 

Michael had a feeling he'd be experiencing all sorts of new and exciting things now that he didn't have to hide who he was from Alex anymore. The idea made him feel rather giddy inside, but he still had that macho cowboy swagger to maintain that Alex liked so much so he tried to school his features somewhat as he turned back around. 

" _Gracias,_ " Michael said simply as he folded himself Indian style across from the other man, their knees touching.

" _De nada,_ " Alex responded automatically, then paused, looking confused as he tore open the bag. "Wait, why are you saying thanks? It's your food."

"Well, technically the chips are Max's food," Michael smirked as he shoved his fingers into the bag, fighting with Alex's fingers for the most crispy, unbroken chips. "But the water's mine."

"That doesn't answer my question, Gue—Michael."

Michael half-choked on the chip in his mouth and had to take an abortive sip of his water. Dayum, how long was it going to take to get used to hearing his name on Alex's lips? 

"Thank you," he coughed out, looking down at where their knees were touching. He ran a finger down the seam of Alex's jeans along where his calf used to be. "For staying."

Fingers that weren't all salty from holding tortilla chips came into view and rested on top of Michael's roving hand. He turned his hand palm up and the fingers twined together securely. "You're welcome."

Michael closed his eyes for a moment as those words in tandem with that soft voice catapulted him back in time ten years to the night Alex had given him the gift of music in the guitar that still lay at their feet. His entropy was already starting to change and he breathed in the peace that Alex radiated whenever he was near him.

"So," Alex began, shifting his gaze meaningfully from Michael's face to the shelves over his shoulder where the magic show had just taken place, and then back again, "all those times I thought I was going crazy one unexplained moment at a time, that was really just you and your extraterrestrial bag of tricks?" 

Alex stopped Michael's other hand en route to his mouth, a triangular tortilla chip stuck between thumb and forefinger, and pulled it close to his face. He ate the chip right out of his hand, brown eyes twinkling at hazel ones, lips just barely grazing his fingertips; then held them up to examine the pad of his index finger.

Michael sat there doing his best impression of The Incredible Mr. Limpet. "Wh—wha— *ahem* what're you doin'?"

Alex broke out his trademark impish grin, "trying to see if it glows."

"Did you just make an _E.T._ reference at my expense?"

"That depends. Does it glow?"

"No."

"Then I guess I didn't," the little shit smiled up at him through his lashes.

"Ugh. I don't know why I love you. You're a horrible person."

"Payback's a bitch."

"Payback? What payback?!"

" _Are you sure I'm not going crazy cuz I saw beer cans swan dive off the rim of your truckbed like synchronized swimmers, Michael?_ "

" _Wow, that must be the world's longest extension cord to power your movie projector all the way out here in the middle of the desert; wherever did you find such a thing, Michael?_ "

" _So you're telling me you scaled the rose trellis—the one that only reaches to the top of the first floor windows—all the way up to my second story bedroom window, Michael?_ "

"You never asked me those questions," Michael was confused. And aroused. His cock had terrible timing, but it wasn't listening to him. Between his telekinesis and his cock, he was basically screwed.

"Exactly!" Alex dropped Michael's captive hand so he could use his own to swat him on the arm. Their other hands remained intertwined in between their laps. "I never asked you those questions because I didn't want you to have to lie to me."

Michael's eyes grew wider. "Wait, so does this mean you've known all along?" He nervously ran his free hand through his mess of curls, not even caring if they were sticking out every which way or that he likely now had salt in his hair.

"I—" Alex's eyes drifted upward, evidently distracted by the mess Michael had just made. He reached up and Michael could feel him re-orienting a couple of the bigger curls. His eyes closed of their own volition and he was _this_ close to letting loose a quiet moan every time Alex's fingernails scratched his scalp in their mission to tame his curls. "—there, all better. I had these... inklings."

His fingers fell away and Michael leaned forward, chasing the sensation. He inhaled sharply and opened his eyes on the exhale, his gaze a little unfocused. Alex was contemplating him as if he were seeing him in a different light than before.

"Uhh..." was his eloquent response. 

Use your head, Guerin! NO, THE OTHER ONE, YOU IDIOT. 

He blinked a few times and tried again. "Inklings?" 

"Mmhmm," Alex carried on blithely, oblivious to his plight. Or enjoying it. Michael wasn't sure which was worse. "When strange things started happening to me, or around me, I took notice. And the common denominator of all those strange happenings," Alex bopped Michael on the nose, making him go cross-eyed as he tried to follow his finger, "was you."

Michael had the grace to look a little sheepish. He'd tried to keep his telekinesis to himself, but his emotions had always gone a bit haywire around Alex, so he'd tried to keep it to a dull roar instead.

"How do you know you weren't just going crazy for reals?" Michael knew he was going to get slapped again but he didn't care. He had a yen for riling him up. A frustrated Alex Manes was a guilty pleasure of his and his brain had just fallen into the gutter and was now pointedly ignoring him, too. 

Alex's jaw dropped and he went one better and punched Michael in just the right place to give him dead-arm. Michael howled in pain even as he burst out laughing, grabbing at his arm with his other hand, which dragged Alex's hand with him, pulling him a little closer to his chest.

Alex continued speaking as if Michael hadn't interrupted him, his words whisper-soft over the skin of Michael's clavicle, making him shiver. "But I could never quite catch you in the act, so all I had were these inklings that some sort of sleight-of-hand was going on or something like that." He rubbed the spot he'd just punched with soothing circular motions. "Like the word that sits on the tip of your tongue but you can't quite remember what it is. And your brain is actually working against you because it strives for order," one of Alex's eyebrows rose into what Michael liked to call 'snark position'. "Futons that levitate and doorknobs that lock themselves and clothes that spin around in an invisible dryer are a little too chaotic for its liking." He leaned over the spot where contact had been made and gave it a quick kiss.

"There, all better."

Michael blushed. Then he pounced.

~*~

"We broke the cot."

"Correction: _You_ broke the cot. I was just an innocent bystander."

"Innocent my ass. You're totally the reason the— okay, okay, fine! — _I'm_ the reason the cot is broken."

"And don't you forget it, cowboy."

Michael snorted his laughter into Alex's neck where he was currently draped over his love. They were still lying on the cot, but it was now hovering just high enough above the floor of the bunker that they were still comfortably suspended in the cradle-like fabric, courtesy of Michael's friendly neighborhood telekinesis. "Yeah, like you're ever going to let me live this down." 

He could hear the smirk, thick in Alex's voice, knew he was grinning like the goober he was. "Probably not, no."

Michael shifted down a couple inches so he could lay his head in the crook of Alex's neck and his fingers could run around on the playground that was Alex's bare chest. His entropy was totally chill at this point and his fingers were lazily tapping out a tattoo across Alex's sternum. 

▪ ▪  
▪ — ▪ ▪      — — —      ▪ ▪ ▪ —      ▪  
— ▪ — —     — — —      ▪ ▪ —

Alex's breathing slowed down a little as he listened to the beat of Michael's finger. He pulled that hand up to his lips and kissed the knuckles before setting it back down on his chest. "I love you, too."

Michael's smile could light up the night but was ruined by a gigantic yawn. "This is how we could communicate with each other, if we were both stars up in the sky."

Alex began singing softly, using his left foot to push off a nearby shelf, thus creating an impromptu rocking hammock. 

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are."

The swaying motion made Michael want to stay here like this forever; he was finally home again. 

"Up above the world so high. Like a diamond in the sky."

Something had been nagging at the back of his mind, but he was getting sleepier by the second the longer Alex sang. It was the first time anyone had ever sung him a lullaby.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star. How I wonder what you are."

"I'm your binary star," Michael answered in a whisper, already mostly asleep, breath evening out, muscles relaxing.

"I know you are, Starman," he only half-heard Alex whisper back as he drifted off. "Just promise me you'll come back and tell me all about your space cowboy adventures someday."

Michael felt a warm presence on his forehead and the delicious feeling of fingers running through his curls but he was too sleepy to respond so he just hummed out a 'mmhmm' and sighed happily into the cocoon of Alex's arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¡Espérate corazon mío! - Wait, heart of mine!  
> Quédate conmigo - Stay with me  
> Porfis? - Please? (slang abbreviation of the phrase 'por favor')


	12. S1E11: You've Got Something I Need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the song _Something I Need_ by One Republic.
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters and pop culture references belong to their respective creators.

Vulnerability is a universal character trait. It tells you you're alive. It tells you that there are things in your life which you value over others, for which you would feel remorse or sadness if you were to lose those things.

Humans are inherently vulnerable but they are also inherently resilient and they have found many ways of coping with and protecting themselves from these vulnerabilities. 

They seek out and take comfort from being around groups of like-minded peers. They engage in vocations and hobbies that soothe their souls and fire their creative spirits. They effect defense mechanisms against the onslaught of vulnerabilities that come a callin' in different guises:

The skulking vulnerability of self-doubt that eats away at them like poison, just a little bit at a time, the process of erosion in miniature.

The brash frontal attack of physical vulnerability that has seen _Thor: Ragnarok_ one too many times and tries to Hulk!smash them into submission in the name of peace and war.

Then there's the most insidious and probably most prevalent variety — emotional vulnerability. It's where many of our most oft-used idiomatic phrases derive their origins: _He wears his heart on his sleeve_ ; _she's a bleeding heart_ ; _Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me_ ; _Fools rush in_ ; _There's a sucker born every minute_ ; _Life is pain, Princess; anyone who tells you differently is selling something_. Okay, well, that last one is actually a quote from _The Princess Bride_ but it should be an idiomatic phrase because it's true.

But that's just emotional vulnerability on a human scale. Michael Guerin isn't human, though; he just plays one on TV as the saying goes. What does emotional vulnerability look like on an alien scale, you wonder? Well, he'll tell you.

It looks like three eleven-year-olds who camp out in the desert together to talk about their nascent extrasensory powers that they've discovered they possess and are just barely getting the hang of using when suddenly they are dragged into a vortex of fear and anger trying to protect each other and realize how dangerous their powers can be.

It looks like post traumatic stress disorder that creates a distrust of something that is part of the very fiber of their beings, and one of them discourages the others from exploring their powers further in a blind attempt to protect themselves from hurting anyone else. Another one of them is happy enough to try and blend in, to take comfort in family and friends and just be human, or a close approximation thereof. The third one has no such creature comforts to fall back on and begins squirreling away bits and pieces from their homeland and waiting under the stars for their families to return, not wanting to give up on the alien essence within, the only thing that feels familiar, safe.

It looks like a seventeen-year-old alien boy who balks at the idea that a seventeen-year-old human boy could want to gift him a guitar just for the sake of being nice. After already giving him a warm place to stay at night when no one else wants to, or even notices he's been living in his truck. But the human boy does. The human boy _sees_ him. Sometimes the alien boy wonders if the human boy knows what he is and marvels that he still wants to know him, let alone be with him. And after ten years of being emotionally and physically discarded for being smarter than every human within spitting distance, the alien boy has suddenly found solace in this human boy who shares his own vulnerabilities voluntarily. The alien boy doesn't quite know what to do with this information. No one has ever heard his story and then wanted to hear more. He doesn't know how to react to this moment. 

Until he does. 

Emotional vulnerability for a seventeen-year-old Michael Guerin wears a chip on his shoulder, a translucent green card dealer's hat and black eyeliner, a nose ring and earring, black nail polish and spiky hair. It looks at him with big brown eyes that speak of heartache and resignation, but also of longing and fidgety anticipation. After that illuminating talk with Max in the Crashdown, Michael decides that if he is going to be stuck on this stupid rock until he can find a way back from whence he came, then he is going to spend it with the one person who makes him believe he has a place here. The only person who has ever made him feel quiet aside from his music. The only person who has ever bothered to ask how he's doing.

What else is there in this life?

So, Michael steps off the cliff into the abyss of emotional vulnerability with Alex Manes by stepping into his arms in one of the exhibit rooms of the UFO Emporium and has never regretted it. Not once. Not when Sarge found them and blew a fuse. Not when Alex caved to his father's prejudices and influence. Not when he had to get used to walking around heartless because he'd given it to Alex for safekeeping. Not even when Alex walked away from him at the drive-in after they'd finally found each other again.

He knows now that Alex thinks he's going to leave him behind when he finishes his ship. _Just promise me you'll come back and tell me all about your space cowboy adventures someday._. Being rendered powerless and trapped inside his own secret lair with a prickly Max was not his idea of a night he wanted to repeat – ever – but it did give him a chance to do some thinking about their most recent encounter. Alex has been trying to say _sayōnara_ to Michael for the past decade for all the wrong reasons, none of them his. It turns out his human boy did know what he was, in his heart of hearts. It was no accident that Michael chose to call him _corazón_ in high school. 

The thing is, Michael will never be ready to say goodbye to Alex. And now that he's not under his father's thumb anymore, and in fact has rather cleverly stomped all over it with his prosthetic foot, Michael can tell that Alex is starting to look at him again with the same curiosity he did on that cold night senior year of high school in the tool shed in his backyard.

Michael will move mountains with his fucking mind if that's what it takes to make Alex see that if/when he leaves this planet behind, Alex will be right there next to him. In the co-pilot's chair. If he'll join him. Maybe he should try using his genius for something other than astrophysics for a hot second and focus on how to do a better job telling his man about his plans for leaving Earth orbit in a ship that actually came _from_ outer space. He really should have thought it through a little more before springing that particular surprise on the very person who just told him he wants to start over from the beginning.

What a dumbass.

Right. Moving on. Tomorrow he's going to track Alex down and they're going to TALK until Michael has made up for putting his foot in his mouth. And then they're going to pick up where they left off in high school, before Michael developed an aversion to hammers. 

Good thing all the pieces of his ship want to be together. Next step: find the rest of them.


	13. S1E12: Yet did I love thee to the last

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a missing scene for 1x12 because I wanted them to have at least a little softness together before they got back to Roswell ♥
> 
> Disclaimer: Chapter title and excerpt below are from the poem _And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair_ by Lord Byron (George Gordon). All characters and pop culture references belong to their respective creators.

> I know not if I could have borne  
>  To see thy beauties fade;  
>  The night that follow'd such a morn  
>  Had worn a deeper shade:  
>  Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,  
>  And thou wert lovely to the last,  
>  Extinguish'd, not decay'd;  
>  As stars that shoot along the sky  
>  Shine brightest as they fall from high.

~*~

Michael Guerin had a mother. He'd felt her presence. He knew her before he even realized who she was. His knees had almost gone weak with recognition. His voice sounded like it had permanently cracked as he stared at her through the cell door. He raked his hands through his curls until they defied gravity while he repeated over and over again, "I know you. I know you, why do I know you?" She had sensed he was there. She rose from the bench that was her only perch upon this world to commune with him at the barrier between them. A sense memory from way down deep in his core told him that he'd found his family at last. They hadn't left him after all. Hadn't abandoned him. Would have come for him sooner if they'd been free. That gravitational pull that kept him tethered in Roswell, searching for signs of them hadn't been entirely fruitless. He'd found parts of their ship. He had their cave. And now he'd found them. Well, he, Valenti, and Alex had.

Alex. He'd said, or rather, yelled, "Okay, maybe, but you're mi—"

"—chael?"

The feather-light touch of Alex's hand on Michael's shoulder – a thumb lightly brushing against his skin where his curls swirled around the nape of his neck – jolted Michael out of his thoughts and he startled, like a frightened horse, taking in his surroundings with wide eyes; nostrils flared.

" _Tranquilo, corazón,_ " Alex whispered, breath warm against his skin in the frigid desert air.

Michael's eyes finally focused on Alex's face, his overwrought brain processed the comforting phrase from their shared past, and his whole being sagged a little to find that at least one of the two people he loved most in this world was still safe. The other person was... at peace now... NO. Michael refused to believe that his mother was gone. He'd just found her! He'd _know_. Now that there wasn't a barrier to keep their spirits apart. 

He'd know.

"Hey," he croaked as he turned his head slightly to the right into Alex's touch, his attention still half-focused on the burning building to his left. "That's my line."

Alex's lips turned up at the corners slightly, but his eyebrows were still crinkled with concern. "C'mon," was all he said, his hand sliding down Michael's arm to twine their fingers together as he tugged him towards the Humvee. 

Michael balked at the request. Leave? They couldn't leave. He turned to look at the crumbling building. He needed to go back and look for his mother! He needed to see if there were any other survivors, he couldn't just—

"We'll come back," Alex said softly, then made a hissing sound. "I promise."

Michael's head snapped back in Alex's direction in alarm at the sound he'd just made. For the first time since they'd escaped the explosion, he took in his man's physical appearance. His clothes were none the worse for wear, but his face was tear-streaked, his hair was a mess, and he was starting to seriously favor his bad leg.

Michael leapt into action. He was so _done_ watching the people he loved suffer today. He slid his bad hand around Alex's waist, and, acting as his ~~human~~ alien crutch, began leading them away from the wreckage.

Kyle took one look at the pair of them gingerly making their way towards him like contestants in a three-legged race and opened the left-side rear door for them before climbing into the driver's seat.

Alex seemed to be on board with this plan because he handed over the keys without a fuss. Michael's telekinesis gave him a little boost up into the back seat and then he clambered in after him. Alex didn't scoot any farther than the middle seat, which told Michael he was putting on a brave face for Kyle's sake but didn't want to be alone. Michael thought they could both use some comfort right now. He would take as much comfort as Alex could offer and make a two-hundred-percent return on his investment. He put his seat belt on, made sure Alex's was fastened, and then re-clasped their hands and let them lie in Alex's lap.

Alex sighed quietly, exhaustion setting in now that the adrenaline rush was over, and they both sank down into each other a little bit, their limbs making contact from shoulder to shin. Alex's head rested on Michael's shoulder as he looked out through the windshield at the passing desert landscape of scrub brush and cactus. After a few minutes of deafening silence, the airman spoke.

"Did she say anything else?"

Alex's voice wavered a little as he asked the question, like maybe he was vacillating over whether or not he should be talking about Michael's mother. He had a mother. Michael still couldn't quite wrap his head around that concept. There had to be a way to find out if she'd survived. That door had had a giant crack running up and down the length of it by the time Alex came to drag Michael out of there. If she was able to make that connection with him telepathically then maybe that meant that the forcefield around her cell had already been weakened enough for her to escape once the building started to tumble. It could have been a domino effect from the front of the building towards the back, like a shock wave. Her cell had a window. She could have escaped through the glass when it blew out, or through the cell door. She was resilient. He knew it in his bones. He was her son, after all, and he was as stubborn as they came. 

Kyle caught Michael's eye in the rearview mirror. "Who, that alien in cell N-39?"

His hand clenched involuntarily in Alex's hand at the mention of his mother being identified as just an alien in a cellblock, which prompted Alex to raise his head to glare at Kyle in the mirror. 

"Kyle," his voice was a low rumble. This was his "don't be an asshole" voice. Kyle was obviously well-acquainted with it because he looked back at Michael a little sheepishly for a second before returning his eyes to the road.

"Sorry, man. I'll just be up here, keeping myself company," and with that, he began singing softly to himself as they merged onto the main highway from the random stretch of nowhere that they'd taken en route to the prison.

The soothing circle Alex was currently rubbing into his skin with his thumb where their hands lay twined brought Michael out of his head and he released some of the tenseness in his shoulders, kissing the top of Alex's head in thanks.

He also briefly concentrated on the air flowing through the slightly open windows of the Humvee and whipped the molecules into a homemade version of noise-cancelling headphones by encouraging them to rub up against each other just enough to make that patented tv-channel-snow sound. The small side-effect wave of heat that began drifting into the back seat didn't hurt either. The sound of Kyle singing suddenly sounded a lot farther away and a bit muffled.

Satisfied with his handiwork, Michael addressed Alex's question. "It wasn't so much that she spoke to me. Not with words anyway. I didn't go into her head like Isobel does when she mindwalks. It was—" Michael paused to think of how he could possibly describe the communion he'd had with his mother. He rested his cheek on top of Alex's head and began absent-mindedly fidgeting with one of the buttons on Alex's coat with his bad hand. "It was like she was sharing her memories with me. Her thoughts. But in pictures. And feelings. And, and, sounds and smells and tastes." The more he processed those precious few moments of physical connection, the more he felt like he remembered. Deep-seated memories from before he hatched from his pod. Sense memories.

"Sounds wonderful," Alex replied quietly, snuggling into Michael's side some more, dropping the stiff upper lip persona and curling into Michael's warmth. He lifted their joined hands to let Alex in, then lowered his arm again, effectively cuddling him like a little gosling under his wing.

"It was. I've only ever felt that happy once before in my life."

Michael felt a full-body shiver flash through Alex's frame and smiled faintly as he leaned his head against the headrest. They both knew when the other time was. And where. And with whom. A shiver ran the length of his own body at the mere mention of the afternoon they fell into each other.

Michael glanced out his window for a moment to compose himself, seeing nothing because his mind's eye was already looking inward, feverishly trying to commit to memory everything she had shared with him during those few magical seconds when their spirits connected through their hands. "I'm hoping that maybe her memories will act like Liz's serum antidote did on Iz and jog some of my repressed memories." His hand had drifted of its own accord down to Alex's thigh and was now drawing lazy patterns into his jeans with the tip of his finger. He really hoped one of his repressed memories was how to read their alphabet.

"Like how to read the language written on the console?"

Michael stopped his hand right in the middle of drawing the beacon symbol that was tattooed on Max's shoulder blade. "How'd you know I was just thinking about that?"

Michael could hear the smirk in Alex's voice, "For the last few minutes you've been drawing the same symbols on my leg that are on the console piece that I—" he abruptly cut himself off.

"That you, what?" Michael prompted when he didn't continue.

"Ugh, is he singing what I think he's singing?" 

Michael knew misdirection when he heard it. Hell, he'd practically invented it; he filed that one away for later and his telekinesis encouraged the molecules to relax and rejoin the airflow inside the boxy, metal frame of the military transport vehicle.

Kyle could actually carry a tune, Michael thought randomly as they listened to the good doctor being his own radio.

_We started singin'... My my, this here Anakin guy_  
_May be Vader someday later - now he's just a small fry_  
_And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye_  
_Sayin' "Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"_  
_"Soon I'm gonna be a Jedi"_

Alex groaned low in his throat and practically tried to crawl inside Michael's jacket to get away from his supposedly ex-ex-bestfriend. Michael could make out only a few words that were being mumbled into his chest but he was pretty sure he heard "bastard" and "gonna kick" and "ass".

Michael tried to keep a straight face but it was a losing battle, especially when he looked up and saw Kyle wink at him in the rearview mirror as he started the next verse.

Yeah, maybe Kyle wasn't so bad after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The verse Kyle's singing is from _The Saga Begins_ by the incomparable Weird Al Yankovic, which is a parody of Don McLean's classic song _American Pie_.  
>  _Tranquilo, corazón_ is Spanish for, in paraphrase, "shhhh, heart of mine".


End file.
